Port Famine to Falkland's Islands
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fired at before he came up, and was presently killed, though I afterwards wished that we had endeavoured to take him alive, which, if we had been aware of his attack, I dare say might easily have been done. When any of these creatures got sight of our people, though at ever so great a distance, they ran directly at them; and no less than five of them were killed this day. They were always called wolves by the ship’s company, but except in their size, and the shape of the tail, I think they bore a greater resemblance to a fox. They are as big as a middle-sized mastiff, and their fangs are remarkably long and sharp. There are great numbers of them upon this coast, though it is not perhaps easy to guess how they first came hither, for these islands are at least one hundred leagues distant from the main: they burrow in the ground like a fox, and we have frequently seen pieces of seal which they have mangled, and the skins of penguins, lie scattered about the mouth of their holes. To get rid of these creatures, our people set fire to the grass, so that the country was in a blaze as far as the eye could reach, for several days, and we could see them running in great numbers to seek other quarters. I dug holes in many places, about two feet deep, to examine the soil, which I found first a black mould, and then a light clay. While we lay here, we set up the armourer’s forge on shore, and completed a great deal of iron work that was much wanted. Our people had every morning an excellent breakfast made of portable soup, and wild celery, thickened with oatmeal: neither was our attention confined wholly to ourselves, for the Surgeon of the Tamar surrounded a piece of ground near the watering-place with a fence of turf, and planted it with many esculent vegetables as a garden, for the benefit of those who might hereafter come to this place. Of this harbour, and all the neighbouring islands, I took possession for his Majesty
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page 50, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/086.html