HISTORY OF DISCOVERY. 19 



evident that Drake was not the first, as has been er- 

 roneously supposed, to cross the Antarctic circle. Drake 

 left Plymouth with a fleet of five ships in 1577. In the 

 following year he was from the 20th of August to the 

 6th of September in the Straits of Magellan. After 

 sailing through and continuing a considerable distance 

 to the north-west, his own ship was driven back by a 

 violent storm to the W.S.W. until he found himself in 

 latitude 57° S., and about 200 leagues from the opening 

 to the straits. He again sailed to the east and came 

 upon the islands belonging to the Tierra del Fuego 

 region in latitude 55° S., where he rested for a few days. 

 Compelled by a renewal of the storm he took refuge 

 among the islands. Fletcher relates in The World 

 Encompassed : " He came finally to the uttermost part of 

 the land towards the South Pole, the extreme cape or 

 cliff lying nearly under 56° S., beyond which neither 

 continent nor island was to be seen ; indeed the Atlantic 

 and the Pacific Oceans here unite in the free and uncon- 

 fined open ". Fletcher tells of the intercourse with the 

 natives of the island, dwellers in barks, describing the 

 typical Tierra del Fuegan. In short, his description 

 gives so clear and unmistakable a picture of the southern 

 extremity of South America, that it seems an absolute 

 marvel that Drake's discovery should have been entirely 

 misunderstood for centuries. And what indeed was not 

 made of it ! A year before the account of his travels 

 was published in the original English edition with the 

 title The Famous Voyage of Sir Francis Drake (1599), 

 a translation, or rather an adaptation of it, appeared in 

 the compilation of Theodore de Bry. This writer 

 turns the above-mentioned 200 leagues of longitude in 

 the distance from the opening into the straits into 

 200 leagues of latitude in a southerly direction ; the 

 word "leagues" also was supposed by the translator 

 to mean miles, which he identified with German or 



