d not get in with the land
this day; the next morning, however, it being northerly, I stood in to a
deep bay, at the bottom of which there appeared to be a harbour, but I
found it barred, the sea breaking quite from one side of it to the
other; and at low water I could perceive that it was rocky, and almost
all dry: The water was shoal at a good distance from it, and I was in
six fathom before I stood out again. In this place there seemed to be
plenty of fish, and we saw many porpoises swimming after them, that were
as white as snow, with black spots; a very uncommon and beautiful sight.
The land here has the same appearance as about Port Desire, all downs,
without a single tree.

At break of day, on the 20th, we were off Cape Fairweather, which bore
about west at the distance of four leagues, and we had here but thirteen
fathom water, so that it appears necessary to give that cape a good
birth. From this place I ran close on shore to Cape Virgin Mary, but I
found the coast to lie S.S.E. very different from Sir John Narborough's
description, and a long spit of sand running to the southward of the
cape for above a league: In the evening I worked up close to this spit
of sand, having seen many guanicoes feeding in the vallies as we went
along, and a great smoke all the afternoon, about four or five leagues
up the strait, upon the north shore.[17] At this place I came to an
anchor in fifteen fathom water, but the Tamar was so far to leeward,
that she could not fetch the anchoring ground, and therefore kept under
way all night.

[Footnote 17: "At eight we discovered a good deal of smoke issuing from
different quarters, and on our nearer approach, could plainly perceive a
number of people on horseback."]

The next morning, at day-break, I got again under sail, and seeing the
same smoke that I had observed the day before, I stood in for it, and
anchored about two miles from the shore. This is the place where the
crew of the Wager, as they were passing the strait in their boat, after
the loss of the vessel, saw a number of horsemen, who waved what
appeared to be white handkerchiefs, inviting them to come on shore,
which they were very desirous to have done, but it blew so hard that
they were obliged to stand out to sea. Bulkeley, the gunner of the
Wager, who has published some account of her voyage, says, that they
were in doubt whether these people were Europeans who had been
shipwrecked upon the coast, or native inhabitan