red in the passage, which cost us
seven weeks and two days, as we entered the streight on Sunday the 17th
of February, and quitted it on Tuesday the 9th of April. Wood and water
are also to be procured almost at every anchoring-place beyond
Freshwater Bay. Our sufferings I impute wholly to our passing the
streight just as the sun approached the equinox, when, in this high
latitude, the worst weather was to be expected; and indeed the weather
we had was dreadful beyond all description.

[Footnote 33: Bougainville gives the same advice as to preferring the
passage through the streights, from the month of September till the end
of March, but at all other periods he recommends to go round Cape Horn.
He was 52 days in going the whole length of the streights, reckoning
from Cape Virgin Mary to Cape Pillar, a distance of 342 miles, and he
says that 36 hours of fair wind were sufficient to carry him from Port
Gallant to the Pacific Ocean. Captain Wallis, we shall see, did not
realize this opinion, or the hopes formed on it--he was almost four
months in getting through the streights, although he attempted the
passage at the very time recommended by Byron. On the other hand,
Captain Krusenstern doubled the cape in four weeks only, after his
leaving St Catharine's Island, which the reader will observe is
considerably northward of the river La Plata, "a voyage," says he,
"which perhaps was never made in a shorter time." In weathering the
cape, he took the advice of Cook, not to approach the land nearer than
30 or 36 miles, by which means he avoided the strong currents which,
according to our great navigator's assertion, seem to lose all their
force at that distance.--E.]

SECTION VIII.

_The Run from the Western Entrance of the Streight of Magellan to the
Islands of Disappointment._

Having cleared the streight, we pursued our course to the westward, till
Friday, April the 26th, when we discovered the island of Massafuero,
bearing W.N.W.1/2 W. distant about sixteen leagues; but as to the
northward it was hazy, the island of Don Juan Fernandez was not in
sight. During this run, the variation had gradually decreased from 22 deg.
to 9 deg. 36'. E.

We bore away for Masafuero,[34] and at sun-set, being within about seven
leagues of it, we brought-to, and afterwards kept the wind all night. At
day-break the next day, we bore away again for the island, at the same
time sending an officer, with a boat from each ship, to sound th