nce was
proportionable to our common exigencies, so that our daily and nightly task
of roving after food was not in the least relaxed thereby; and all put
together was so far from answering our necessities, that many at this time
perished with hunger. A boy, when no other eatables could be found, having
picked up the liver of one of the drowned men, (whose carcase had been torn
to pieces by the force with which the sea drove it among the rocks) was
with difficulty withheld from making a meal of it. The men were so
assiduous in their research after the few things which drove from the
wreck, that in order to have no sharers of their good fortune, they
examined the shore no less by night than by day; so that many of them who
were less alert, or not so fortunate as their neighbours, perished with
hunger, or were driven to the last extremity. It must be observed, that on
the 14th of May we were cast away, and it was not till the twenty-fifth of
this month that provision was served regularly from the store-tent.

The land we were now settled upon was about 90 leagues to the northward of
the western mouth of the Straits of Magellan, in the latitude of between 47
and 48 deg. south, from whence we could plainly see the Cordilleras; and by two
lagoons on the north and south of us, stretching towards those mountains,
we conjectured it was an island. But as yet we had no means of informing
ourselves perfectly whether it was an island or the main; for besides that
the inland parts at little distance from us seemed impracticable, from the
exceeding great thickness of the wood, we had hitherto been in such
confusion and want, (each finding full employment for his time, in scraping
together a wretched subsistence, and providing shelter against the cold and
rain) that no party could be formed to go upon discoveries. The climate and
season too were utterly unfavourable to adventurers; and the coast, as far
as our eye could stretch seaward, a scene of such dismal breakers as would
discourage the most daring from making attempts in small boats. Nor were we
assisted in our enquiries by any observation that could be made from that
eminence we called Mount Misery, toward land, our prospect that way being
intercepted by still higher hills and lofty woods: we had therefore no
other expedient by means of which to come at this knowledge, but by fitting
out one of our ship's boats upon some discovery, to inform us of our
situation. Our long-boat was