34 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
him at northwest, and after vered about to the southwest, 
which continued with him many dayes, with that ex- 
tremitie, that he could not open any sayle, and that at the 
end of the storme, he found himselfe in fiftie degrees* 
which was sufficient testimony and proof e that he zvas 
beaten round about the straites ” 
There is thus no manner of doubt that Drake had 
proved Tierra del Fuego to be a group of islands and 
not part of any Antarctic Continent ; but his record was 
misunderstood, he himself thought little of it and does 
not appear to have given a name to the “ extreme cape or 
cliff ” which probably enough was that which Le Maire 
and Schouten in 1615 after passing through Strait Le 
Maire and sighting Staten Land called Cape Lloorn after 
one of their ships, a name since only too familiar to the 
deep-sea sailor as The Horn. 
The next important event in the history of the Antarctic 
possibly occurred twenty-one years later, but whether it 
occurred or not is one of those puzzling questions to 
which an answer is difficult. The story, which has been 
accepted by many students of the history of discovery, is 
to the effect that a small Dutch vessel, the Blijde Bood- 
schap (Blithe Tidings), under the command of Dirk 
Gerritsz, one of the famous Dutch squadron of “ the 
Five Ships ” bound to the Indies for trade and plunder, 
after having cleared Magellan Strait and reached 50° S. 
in the Pacific, was driven back by a storm to 64° S. 
where a mountainous snowy coast like that of Norway 
was discovered, extending apparently to the Solomon 
Islands. It has been generally believed on the strength 
* Probably an error of a copyist who mistook “ 56 ” for “ 50 ” ; 
it is scarcely probable though not impossible that longitude and 
not latitude is meant. 
