TRAGICAL FATE OF A BOAT'S CREW. 



309 



to seek shelter on the coast of Terra del Fuego. The winds again forced him from his 

 anchorage, and his shallop, with eight men on board, and provisions for only one day, 

 was separated from him. The fate of these poor fellows was tragical. They regained 

 the straits, where they caught and salted a quantity of penguins, and then coasted up 

 South America to the Plata. Six of them landed, and while searching for food in the 

 forests, encountered a party of Indians, who wounded all of them with their arrows, and 

 secured four, pursuing the others to the boat. These latter reached the two men in 

 charge, but before they could put off, all were wounded by the natives. They, however, 

 succeeded in reaching an island some distance from the mainland, where two of them 

 died from the injuries received, and the boat was wrecked and beaten to pieces on the 



SIK F. DRAKE. 



rocks. The remaining two stopped on the island eight weeks, living on shell-fish and a 

 fruit resembling an orange, but could find no water. They at length ventured to the 

 mainland on a largo plank some ten feet in length, which they propelled with paddles ; 

 the passage occupied three days. " On coming to land," says Carter, the only survivor, 

 "we found a rivulet of sweet water; when William Pitcher, my only comfort and 

 companion (although I endeavoured to dissuade him) overdrank himself, and to my 

 unspeakable grief, died within half an hour." Carter himself fell into the hands of some 

 Indians, who took pity on him, and conducted him to a Portuguese settlement. Nine years 

 elapsed before he was able to regain his own country. 



Meantime Drake was driven so far to the southward, that at length he " fell in with 

 the uttermost part of the land towards the South Pole," or in other words, reached Caps 

 Horn. The storm had lasted with little intermission for over seven weeks. " Drake went 

 ashore, and, sailor-like, leaning over a promontory, as far as he safely could, came back 



