eyond the equinoctial to the north, where these
mountains left us, and had nothing to screen us to the eastward but
the high lands on the Isthmus of Darien, which are mere mole-hills
compared to the Andes, we then found that we had totally changed
our climate in a short run; passing, in two or three days, from the
temperate air of Peru, to the sultry and burning atmosphere of the
West Indies.

To return to our narration. On the 10th of November we were three
leagues south of the southern island, of _Lobos_, in lat. 6 deg. 27'
S. This is called _Lobos de la Mar_; and another, which is to the
northward of it, and resembles it so much in shape and appearance as
to be often mistaken for it, is called _Lobos de Tierra_.[3] We
were now drawing near the station that had been appointed for the
Gloucester, and fearing to miss her, we went under easy sail all
night. At day-break next morning, we saw a ship in shore and to
windward, which had passed us unseen in the night, and soon perceiving
that she was not the Gloucester, we got our tacks on board and gave
her chase. But as there was very little wind, so that neither we
nor the chase had made much way, the commodore ordered his barge
and pinnace, with the pinnace of the Tryal's prize, to be manned
and armed, and to pursue and board the chase. Lieutenant Brett, who
commanded our barge, came up with her first about nine o'clock, a.m.
and, running alongside, fired a volley of small shot between her
masts, just over the heads of her people, and then instantly boarded
with the greatest part of his men. But the enemy made no resistance,
being sufficiently intimidated by the dazzling of the cutlasses, and
the volley they had just received. Lieutenant Brett now made the sails
of the prize be trimmed, and bore down towards the commodore, taking
up the other two boats in his way. When within about four miles of us,
he put off in the barge, bringing with him a number of the prisoners,
who had given him some material intelligence, which he was desirous of
communicating to the commodore as soon as possible. On his arrival, we
learnt that the prize was called _Nuestra Senora del Carmin_, of
about 270 tons burden, commanded by Marcos Moreno, a native of Venice,
having on board forty-three mariners. She was deeply laden with
steel, iron, wax, pepper, cedar plank, snuff, _rosarios_, European
bale-goods, powder-blue, cinnamon, papal indulgences, and other kinds
of merchandize; and, though this