THE FLEET SCATTERED. 



325 



that the crews were kept in continual labor and anxiety. Th« 

 scarcity of food was such that the people were sent on shore 

 every day at low water, frequently in rain, snow, or frost, to 

 seek for shell-fish or to gather roots for their subsistence. These 

 they devoured in the state in which they were found, having 

 no patience to wait to cook them. One hundred and twenty 

 men were buried during this disastrous winter. 



On the evening of September the 3d, the whole fleet, including 

 a shallop of sixteen tons, named the Postillion, which had been 

 put together in the Strait, entered the South Sea. A storm 

 soon separated them, leaving the Fidelity and Faith as consorts, 

 and scattering the rest in every direction. The adventures of 

 the Fidelity and Faith, however, require that we should follow 

 them in their fortunes around the world. De Weert found his 

 ship almost unseaworthy, without a master, short of hands, and 

 with two pilots quite too old to be efficient. After weathering 

 another storm, which nearly sent the vessels to the bottom, both 

 taptains resolved to return to the Strait and to wait there in 

 Home safe bay for a favorable wind. On the 27th, they arrived 

 lit the mouth of the Strait, and were drifted by the current some 

 seven leagues inland. 



As the Antarctic summer was now approaching, they were in 

 hopes of fair weather; yet during the two months of their 

 Btay they hardly had a day in which to dry their sails. The 

 seamen began to murmur, alleging that there would not be 

 sufficient biscuit for their return to Holland if they remained 

 here longer. Upon this de Weert went into the bread-room, as 

 if to examine the store, and, on coming out, declared, with a 

 cheerful countenance, that there was biscuit enough for eight 

 months, though in reality there was barely enough for four. 

 On the 3d of December, they succeeded in leaving the Strait, 

 but, by some mismanagement, anchored a league apart, with a 

 point of land between them which intercepted the view. A gale 

 of wind forced the Fidelity from her anchors, and she was com- 



