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that they emerged out of the Strait, they were caught in a gale which swept them six hundred miles to the south-west. For six weeks they were battered to and fro, in bitter cold and winds which seemed as if they blew in these latitudes for ever. The cutter went down in the fearful seas, carrying her crew with her. The Elizabeth and the Pelican were separated. The bravest sailor might well have been daunted at such a commencement, and Winter, recovering the opening again and, believing Drake to be lost, called a council in his cabin and proposed to return to England. They had agreed to meet, if they were parted, on the coast in the latitude of Valparaiso. The men, with better heart than their commander, desired to keep the appointment. But those terrible weeks had sickened Winter. He overruled the opinions of the rest, re-entered the Strait, and reached England in the following June. Drake, meanwhile, had found shelter among the islands of Tierra del Fuego. At length spring brought fair winds and smooth seas, and running up the coast and looking about for her consort, the Pelican or Golden Hind--for she had both names--fell in with an Indian fisherman, who informed Drake that in the harbour of Valparaiso, already a small Spanish settlement, there lay a great galleon which had come from Peru. Galleons were the fruit that he was in search of. He sailed in, and the Spanish seamen, who had never yet seen a stranger in those waters, ran up their flags, beat their drums, and prepared a banquet for their supposed countrymen. The Pelican shot up alongside. The English sailors leaped on board, and one "Thomas Moore," a lad from Plymouth, began the play with knocking down the first man that he met, saluting him in Spanish as he fell, and crying out "Down, dog." The Spaniards, overwhelmed with surprise, began to cross and bless themselves. One sprang overboard and swam ashore; the rest were bound and stowed away under the hatches while the ship was rifled. The beginning was not a bad one. Wedges of gold were found weighing four hundred pounds, besides miscellaneous plunder. The settlement, which was visited next, was less productive, for the inhabitants had fled, taking their valuables with them. At Arica, the port of Potosi, fifty-seven blocks of precious metal were added to the store; and from thence they made haste to Lima, where the largest booty was looked for. They found that they had just missed it. Twelve ships lay at a
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