Port Famine to Falkland's Islands
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appears also by both accounts, that the weather prevented his going on shore, and that he steered from it W.S.W. till he came into latitude fifty-three: there can therefore be little doubt but that Cowley gave the name of Pepys’s Island after he came home, to what he really supposed to be the island of Sebald de Wert, for which it is not difficult to assign several reasons; and though the supposition of a mistake of the figures does not appear to be well grounded, yet, there being no land in forty-seven, the evidence that what Cowley saw was Falkland’s Islands, is very strong. The description of the country agrees in almost every particular, and even the map is of the same general figure, with a streight running up the middle. The chart of Falkland’s that accompanies this narrative, was laid down from the journals and drawings of Captain Macbride, who was dispatched thither after my return, and circumnavigated the whole coast: the two principal islands were probably called Falkland’s Islands by Strong, about the year 1689, as he is known to have given the name of Falkland’s Sound to part of the streight which divides them. The journal of this navigator is still unprinted in the British Musaeum. The first who saw these islands is supposed to be Captain Davies, the associate of Cavendish, in 1592. In 1594, Sir Richard Hawkins saw land, supposed to be the same, and in honour of his mistress, Queen Elizabeth, called them HAWKINS’S MAIDEN LAND. Long afterwards, they were seen by some French ships from Saint Maloes, and Frezier, probably for that reason, called them the Malouins, a name which has been since adopted by the Spaniards.
Having continued in the harbour which I had called Port Egmont till Sunday the 27th of January, we sailed again at eight o’clock in the morning with the wind at S.S.W.; but
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page 54, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/090.html