The Boat Came
Back On The 5th With The General's Answer, Saying, That He Was Not Sure
Of Having Enough Of Biscuit For His Own Men, Neither Knew He How Long He
Might Be At Sea, And Therefore Could Not Spare Any.
This answer
afflicted de Weert; and having now no hopes of being again rejoined by
de Cordes, he resolved to proceed for Penguin Island, to lay in a large
store of these birds, and then to follow the fleet of Van Noort, if the
wind proved fair.
Before sailing, he wrote a letter for de Cordes, which
he left buried at the foot of a tree, and nailed a board to the tree, on
which was painted, Look at the bottom of this tree.
On the 11th January, 1600, de Weert made sail for Penguin Islands, and
next day came to anchor under the smaller of these islands, where he
immediately landed with thirty-eight men in tolerable health, leaving
the pilots and other seamen on board. Leaving three men to keep the
boat, the rest fell to killing birds, of which there were a prodigious
quantity in the island. In the mean time the wind grew nigh and the sea
very stormy, by which the boat was thrown so high upon the rocks, and so
filled with water, that the boat-keepers were unable to get her off, or
to heave out the water, and so much tossed by the surges that they
expected every minute to have her stove to pieces.
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