Welsh Explorers . 
291 
two stumps in the place of wings, by which he swimmeth under 
water with as great swiftnes as any fish. They live upon smelts, 
whereof there is great abundance upon this coast: in eating they be 
neither fish nor flesh: they lay great eges, and the birde is of a reasonable 
bignes, very neere twise so big as a ducke. ... We stayed in this 
harbor [Penguin Isle, in the Straits of Magellan] until the 22 of 
December, in which time we had dried 200,000 penguins.” ( Hakluyt , 
vol. iv. p. 370.) 
Sir Thomas Herbert, describing a different part of the 
world, writes, in 1626 :— 
“We dropt our anchor 14 leagues short of Souldania Bay afore a 
small isle call’d Coney Isle through corruption of speech: the proper 
name of that isle being Cain-yne in Welch. The isle is three miles 
about, in which we saw abundance of pen-gwins, in Welch white- 
heads, agreeable to their colour; a bird that of all other goes most 
erect in motion, the wings or fins hanging down like sleeves, covered 
with down instead of feathers, their legs serving them better than their 
wings; they feed on fish at sea and grass ashore, and have holes to 
live in like conies; a degenerate duck, for using both sea and shore, 
it feeds in the one, breeds in the other; is very fat and oily, and 
some adventure to eat them; for curiosity may invite.” ( Travels , 
p. 12.) 
Souldania Bay, we are informed, is on the south-east 
coast of Africa, twelve leagues from the Cape of Good 
Hope. The worthy knight loses no opportunity of 
proving by etymology his favourite theory, that Welsh¬ 
men were the earliest explorers, both in South Africa and 
in America. In this opinion he is supported both by 
Purchas and Hakluyt, and also by the lawyer and states¬ 
man, John Selden. In a note on Drayton’s ninth book 
of the Polyolbion, Selden confirms an assertion of that poet 
in the following words:— 
“ About the year 1170, Madoc, brother to David ap Owen, Prince 
of Wales, made this sea voyage; and by probability, those names of 
Capo de Briton in Norumbeg, and Peng win in part of Northern 
America, for a white rock, and a white headed bird, according to the 
British, were relicks of this discovery, so that the Welsh may challenge 
priority of finding that new world, before the Spaniards, Genoese, and 
