AUSTRIALIA DEL ESP IR ITU SANTO 183 



Sails were taken in, and the ship fell away. And " the 

 Chief Pilot, exaggerating very much the importance of 

 being unable to find bottom, together with the darkness 

 of the night, the strong wind, the numerous lights he 

 saw, without being able to judge with certainty which 

 were those of the two ships, said to the Captain that he 

 was unable to reach the port. The Captain commended 

 his zeal and vigilance." 



The passage seems to me to suggest composite author- 

 ship. The story is essentially the same as that told by 

 the Pilot, and, like his, gives nautical reasons that are 

 apparently sufficient to explain the failure. And Quiros 

 explicitly praises the Pilot's " zeal and vigilance." And 

 yet, in the same sentence, he blames him for " exaggerating 

 very much the importance of being unable to find the 

 bottom." The phrase rouses suspicion that it expresses 

 the mind, not of the Captain, but of the secretary. And 

 the suspicion becomes a certainty when we read what 

 follows : " There was one " (evidently Bermudez himself) 

 " who said, and made it clearly to be understood, that Bermudez 

 more diligence might easily have been shown to anchor, theTship* 

 or to remain without leaving the Bay ; and that, with could have 

 only the spritsail braced up, she might have run for shelter fnchorage. 

 under the Cape to windward. It was also said that they 

 went to sleep." 



Next morning, the Quiros-Bermudez narrative continues, 

 the Captain asked the Pilot what was the position of 

 the ship. He replied that she was to leeward of the Cape, 

 and the Captain x told him to make sail that she might 

 not make leeway. The Pilot answered that the sea was 

 too high and against them, and that the bows driving 

 into the water would cause her timbers to open, though 

 he would do his best. " / say " (thus indignantly Bermudez 

 breaks into the narrative), " / say that this was a great 

 misfortune, owing to the Captain being disabled by ill- 

 ness on this and other occasions, when the Pilots wasted 

 time, obliging him to believe what they said, to take what 

 they gave, measured out as they pleased ! " Attempts 

 were made, the writer admits, during this and the two 



