seams were bad, our tools
wretched, and our artists very indifferent. When this was done, so as we
could, our bark was put into the water to try her fitness, on which
there was an outcry of, A sieve! a sieve! Every one now seemed
melancholy and dispirited, insomuch that I was afraid they would use no
farther means; but in a little time, by incessant labour, we brought her
into a tolerable condition. Having repaired the ship's pumps, and fitted
them to the bark, the people exclaimed that this was only a poor
dependence; but I exhorted them to have patience, and continue their
assistance in doing every thing that could be thought of for her
security. The cooper also made a set of buckets, one for every man, to
serve to bale her, in case of necessity. Next spring-tide, which was on
the 5th October, 1720, we put her again into the water, naming her the
_Recovery_, when she answered tolerably well, when we resolved to run
the hazard of going to sea in her, and made all possible dispatch in
getting our things on board. Yet, after all, a dozen of our people chose
to remain on shore, together with as many negroes and Indians.

Our sea-stock, besides the small quantity of beef and cassada flour
formerly mentioned, consisted of 2300 eels cured in smoke, weighing one
with another about a pound each, together with about sixty gallons of
seal-oil, in which to fry them. On our first landing, as the weather was
then too coarse for fishing, we had to live on seals, the entrails of
which are tolerable food; but the constant and prodigious slaughter we
made among them, frightened them from our side of the island. Some of
the people eat cats, which I could not bring myself to, and declared
they were sweet nourishing food. When the weather allowed us to fish, we
were delivered from these hardships; but some of our mischievous crew
set the boat a-drift, so that she was lost: after which we contrived
wicker boats, covered with sea-lions skins, which did well enough near
shore, but we durst not venture in them out into the bay, and
consequently were worse provided with fish than we might otherwise have
been. We fried our fish in seal-oil, and eat it without bread or salt,
or any other relish, except some wild sorrel. Our habitations were very
wretched, being only covered by boughs of trees, with the skins of seals
and sea-lions, which were often torn off in the night, by sudden flaws
of wind from the mountains.

The island of Juan Fernandez