different from what we felt
in passing round Cape Horn, the violence of this disease, and its
fatality, might be in some degree mitigated; as it had not been
unusual to suppose that its particular virulence in that passage
was in a great measure owing to the severity of the weather; but the
havock of the distemper, in our present circumstances, soon convinced
us of the falsity of this speculation; as it likewise exploded some
other opinions, which usually pass current about the cause and nature
of this disease.[1]

[Footnote 1: Some remarks respecting the nature and treatment of
this disease are now given in the original, but being imperfect and
conjectural, are omitted here.--E.]

Our surgeon (who, during our passage round Cape Horn, had ascribed the
mortality we suffered to the severity of the climate) exerted himself
in the present run to the utmost, and at last declared, that all his
measures were totally ineffectual, and did not in the least avail his
patients. When we reached the trade-wind, and it settled between the
north and the east, yet it seldom blew with so much strength, but
the Centurion might have carried all her small sails abroad with the
greatest safety; so that now, had we been a single ship, we might
have run down our longitude apace, and have reached the Ladrones soon
enough to have recovered great numbers of our men, who afterwards
perished. But the Gloucester, by the loss of her main-mast, sailed so
very heavily, that we had seldom any more than our top-sails set, and
yet were frequently obliged to lie to for her: And, I conceive, that
in the whole we lost little less than a month by our attendance upon
her, in consequence of the various mischances she encountered. In all
this run it was remarkable, that we were rarely many days together,
without seeing great numbers of birds; which is a proof that there
are many islands, or at least rocks, scattered all along, at no very
considerable distance from our track. Some indeed there are marked in
a Spanish chart; but the frequency of the birds seems to evince,
that there are many more than have been hitherto discovered: For the
greatest part of the birds we observed were such as are known to roost
on shore; and the manner of their appearance sufficiently made out,
that they came from some distant haunt every morning, and returned
thither again in the evening; for we never saw them early or late;
and the hour of their arrival and departure gradually v