The Wind Blows Here Generally Off The Shore, Sometimes In Heavy Squalls, But For The Most Part Calm, And Where We Were Moored The Water Was Very Smooth, Owing To The Winding Of The Shore.

Mr Selkirk told us it had never blown towards the land above four hours, all the time he had been there.

It is all hills and vallies, and would doubtless produce most plants usual in such climates, if manured and cultivated, as the soil promises well in most parts, and already grows turnips and some other roots, which I suppose were formerly sowed. It has plenty of wood and water, and abundance of wild goats.

There are such numbers of great sea-lions and other seals of various sorts, all having excellent furs, in every bay, that we could hardly walk about along shore for them, as they lay about in flocks like sheep, their young ones bleating for their dams like so many lambs. Some of these sea-lions are as big in the body as an English ox, and they roar like lions. They are covered with short hair of a light colour, which is still lighter on the young ones. I suppose they live partly on fish and partly on grass, for they come on shore by means of their fore paws, dragging their hind parts after them, and bask themselves in the sun in great numbers. They cut near a foot deep of fat, and we killed a good many of them for the sake of their oil, which is of good quality, but they are difficult to kill. Both sea-lions and seals were so numerous on the shore, that we had to drive them away before we could land, and they were so numerous as is hardly credible, making a most prodigious noise.

There are but few birds. One sort, called pardelas by the Spaniards, burrow in the ground like rabbits, and are said to be good eating. There are also humming-birds, not much larger than bumble bees, their bills no thicker than a pin, their legs proportional to their bodies, and their minute feathers of most beautiful colours. These are seldom taken or seen but in the evenings, when they fly about, and they flew sometimes at night into our fire. There is here a sort of cabbage tree, of the nature of a palm, producing small cabbages, but very sweet. The tree is slender and straight, with circular knobs on the stem fourteen inches above each other, and having no leaves except at the top. The branches are about twelve feet long, and at about a foot and a half from the body of the tree begin to shoot out leaves, which are four feet long and an inch broad, and so regularly placed that the whole branch seems one entire leaf. The cabbage, which grows out from the bottom of the branches, is about a foot long and very white; and at the bottom of this there grow clusters of berries, weighing five or six pounds, like bunches of grapes, as red as cherries and larger than our black-heart cherries, each having a large stone in the middle, and the pulp eats like our haws. These cabbage trees abound about three miles into the woods, the trunk being often eighty or ninety feet high, and is always cut down to get the cabbages, which are good eating; but most of them grow on the tops of the nearest mountains to the great bay.

We found here some Guinea pepper, and some silk cotton trees, besides several others with the names of which I am not acquainted. Pimento is the best timber, and the most plentiful at this side of the island, but it is very apt to split till it is a little dried. We cut the longest and cleanest to split for fire wood. In the nearest plain, we found abundance of turnip greens, and water-cresses in the brooks, which greatly refreshed our men, and quickly cured them of the scurvy. Mr Selkirk said the turnips formed good roots in our summer months, which are winter at this island; but this being autumn, they were all run up to seed, so that we had no benefit of them excepting their green leaves and shoots. The soil is a loose black earth, and the rocks are very rotten, so that it is dangerous to climb the hills for cabbages without great care. There are also many holes dug into the ground by a sort of birds called puffins, which give way in walking, and endanger the breaking or wrenching a limb. Mr Selkirk said he had seen snow and ice here in July, the depth of the southern winter; but in September, October, and November, the spring months, the climate is very pleasant, and there are then abundance of excellent herbs, as purslein, parsley, and sithes. We found also an herb, not unlike feverfew, which proved very useful to our surgeons for fomentations. It has a most grateful smell like balm, but stronger and more cordial, and grew in plenty near the shore. We gathered many large bundles of it, which were dried in the shade, and sent aboard for after-use, besides strewing the tents with it fresh gathered every morning, which tended much to the recovery of our sick, of whom, though numerous when we came here, only two died belonging to the Duchess. We found the nights very cold, and the days not near so warm as might have been expected in so low a latitude. It hardly ever rains, instead of which there fall very heavy dews in the night, which serve the purposes of rain, and the air is almost perpetually serene.

The 13th February we held a consultation, in which we framed several regulations for preserving secrecy, discipline, and strict honesty in both vessels: and on the 17th we determined that two men from the Duke should serve in the Duchess, and two of her men in the Duke, to see that justice was reciprocally done by each ship's company to the other.

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