Cape Pillar to Masasuero
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The gale continued in this direction till eight in the morning of the 7th, when it returned to the N.W. with unsettled weather. On the 8th, it came to south, and this was a fine day, the first we had seen after our leaving the Streight of Magellan. Our latitude at noon was 36° 39'S., and we were about five degrees to the westward of Cape Pillar. The next day we made the island of Masafuero, and on the 10th, the island of Juan Fernandes: in the afternoon we got close to the eastermost part of it, and soon after hauled round the north end, and opened Cumberland Bay. As I did not know that the Spaniards had fortified this island, I was greatly surprized to see a considerable number of men about the beach, with a house and four pieces of cannon near the water-side, and a fort about three hundred yards farther from the sea, just upon the rising of the hill, with Spanish colours flying on the top of it. This fort, which is faced with stone, has eighteen or twenty embrasures, and within it a long house, which I supposed to be barracks for the garrison: five and twenty or thirty houses of different kinds are scattered round it, and we saw much cattle feeding on the brow of the hills, which seemed to be cultivated, as many spots were divided by enclosures from each other; we saw also two large boats lying on the beach. The gusts of wind which came right out of this bay, prevented my going so near as I intended, for they were so violent as to oblige us many times to let fly our top-sail sheets, though the sails were close reefed; and I think it is impossible to work a ship into this bay when the wind blows hard from the southward. As we stood cross the bay to the westward, one of the boats put off from the shore, and rowed towards us; but perceiving that the gusts, or flaws, made us lie at a considerable distance from the land, she went in again. We then opened Weft Bay, on the east part of which, close to the sea side, is a small house, which I took for a guard-house, and two pieces of cannon mounted upon their carriages, without any works about them. We now wore, and stood again for Cumberland Bay, but as soon as we opened it, the boat again put off, and made towards us: as the hard gusts would not permit us to come any nearer to the land than before, we stood along it to the eastward, the boat still making after us till she was very far out of the bay: at length it grew dark, and we lost fight of her, upon which we made all the sail we could to the eastward.
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page 541, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/541.html