they called Popish
bay, probably owing to some cross erected on its shore, and in which
they were exposed to much danger. On the 27th, they saw at a distance a
huge mountain of ice in Penguin bay. The 28th they passed Cape Deseado,
or Desire, into the South Sea, bidding adieu to the many dismal
prospects of the Straits of Magellan. Their company, originally 248 men,
was now reduced to 147, but was soon still farther lessened by losing
company of the Henry Frederick, which never rejoined. Waiting for that
ship in vain till the 12th March, they sailed to the island of Mocha on
the coast of Chili, in lat. 38 deg. 22' S. and six miles [twenty English]
from the continent. This island is remarkable by a high mountain in the
middle, which is cloven at the top, and whence a water-course descends
into the vale land at its foot. They here bartered knives and hatchets
with the natives for sheep, poultry, maize, _bartulas_,[76] and other
fruits. The town consisted of about fifty straw huts, where the Dutch
were regaled with a sour kind of drink, called _cici_, made of maiz
steeped in water, which is the favourite drink of the Chilese at their
feasts. Polygamy is much practised among these people, who buy as many
wives as they can afford to maintain; so that a man who has many
daughters, especially if they be handsome, is accounted rich. If one man
kill another, he is judged by the relations of the deceased, as they
have no laws or magistrates among them, so that the murderer may
sometimes buy off his punishment by giving a drinking-bout of _cici_.
Their cloathing is manufactured from the wool of a large kind of sheep,
which animal they also employ to carry burdens. They would not sell any
of these, but parted freely with another kind, not very different.

[Footnote 76: This probably means battatas or potatoes, a native
production of Chili.--E.]

From thence they went to the island of St Mary, in lat. 37 deg. S. eighteen
miles [ninety-five English] from Mocha, where they fell in with a
Spanish ship carrying lard and meal from Conception to Valdivia in
Araucania, which they chased and took. The pilot of this ship informed
them that they would not be able to return to the island of St Mary,
owing to the south wind, and that two Spanish ships of war were waiting
for them at Arica. Upon this information they resolved to sail for
Valparaiso, and by that means quite lost all chance of being rejoined by
the Henry Frederick, which might o