414 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



was less successful, but in 1539, Alfonso de Camargo, having lost two vessels 

 in the strait, passed it with the third, and reached the port of Callao. 



Until now the Spanish flag had alone been seen in these remote and solitary 

 waters, but the time was come when they were to open a passage to its most 

 inveterate foes. On August 20, 1579, Francis Drake, commissioned by Queen 

 Elizabeth to plunder and destroy the Spanish settlements on the west coast of 

 America, ran into the strait, and on December 6 sallied forth into the Pacific. 



To meet this formidable enemy, the Viceroy of Peru sent out in the same 

 year two ships under Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa. His orders were to inter- 

 cept Drake's passage through the strait and then to sail on to Spain. Though 

 he failed in the object of his mission, yet Sarmiento displayed in the naviga- 

 tion of the intricate and dangerous passages along the south-west coast of 

 America, the courage and skill of a consummate seaman, and he gave the first 

 exact and detailed account of the land and waters of Fuegia. His voyage, ac- 

 cording to the weighty testimony of Captain King, deserves to be noted as one 

 of the most useful of the age in which it was performed. 



On his arrival in Spain, Sarmiento strongly pointed out the necessity of es- 

 tablishing a colony and erecting a fort in the strait (at that time the only known 

 passage to the Pacific), so as effectually to prevent the recurrence of a future 

 hostile expedition like that of Drake. Commissioned by Philip II. to carry 

 his plans into execution, he founded a colony, to which he gave the name of 

 Ciudad de San Felipe, but a series of disasters entirely destroyed it ; and when, 

 a few years later. Cavendish, who had fitted out three ships at his own expense 

 to imitate the example of Drake, appeared in the strait, he found but three sur- 

 vivors of many hundreds, and gave the scene of their misery the appropriate 

 name of Port Famine, which it has retained to the present day. 



After Cavendish and Hawkins (1594), the Dutch navigators De Cordes 

 (1599), Oliver Yan I^oort (1599), and Spilberg (1615), attempted, with more or 

 less success, to sail through the strait with the intention of harassing and plun- 

 dering the Spaniards on the coast of the Pacific. 



Strange to say, no attempt had been made since Magellan to discover a pas- 

 sage farther to the south, so universal and firmly established was the belief that 

 Fuegia extended without interruption to the regions of eternal ice, until at 

 length, in 1616, the Dutchmen Schouten and Le Maire discovered the passage 

 round Cape Horn. Two years later Garcia de Nodales sailed through the 

 Strait of Le Maire, and, returning through the Magellans into the Atlantic, was 

 thus the first circumnavigator of Fuegia. In 1669, Sir John Narborough hav- 

 ing been sent out by King Charles II. to explore the Magellanic regions, fur- 

 nished a good general chart of the strait, and many plans of the anchorage 

 within it. 



More than sixty years now elapsed before any expedition of historical renown 

 made its appearance in the strait. The dangers and hardships which had as- 

 sailed the previous navigators discouraged their successors, who all preferred 

 the circuitous way round Cape Horn to the shorter but, as it was at that time 

 considered, more perilous route through the strait. After this long pause, By- 

 ron (December, 1764) and Bougainville (February, 1765) once more attempted 



