he might be at sea, and therefore could not spare any.  This answer afflicted de Weert; and having now no hopes of being again rejoined by de Cordes, he resolved to proceed for Penguin Island, to lay in a large store of these birds, and then to follow the fleet of Van Noort, if the wind proved fair.  Before sailing, he wrote a letter for de Cordes, which he left buried at the foot of a tree, and nailed a board to the tree, on which was painted, Look at the bottom of this tree.

On the 11th January, 1600, de Weert made sail for Penguin Islands, and next day came to anchor under the smaller of these islands, where he immediately landed with thirty-eight men in tolerable health, leaving the pilots and other seamen on board.  Leaving three men to keep the boat, the rest fell to killing birds, of which there were a prodigious quantity in the island.  In the mean time the wind grew nigh and the sea very stormy, by which the boat was thrown so high upon the rocks, and so filled with water, that the boat-keepers were unable to get her off, or to heave out the water, and so much tossed by the surges that they expected every minute to have her stove to pieces.  In this extremity the seamen were almost in despair.  Without the boat it was impossible for them to return on board.  They had no carpenters, no tools, and no wood, with which to repair their boat, as there was no wood whatever on the island.  They were all wet, as they had waded into the water as high as their shoulders to draw the boat from the rocks, and they were starving with cold.  Fortunately, at low water, the boat being aground, they recovered an axe and some tools, with a few nails, which revived their hopes of being able to get back to the ship.  But as it was impossible to get the boat drawn ashore before night for repairs, they were obliged to pass the night on shore in the open air, where they made a fire of some broken planks from the boat, and eat some birds half-roasted, without bread, and with so little water that they could not quench their thirst.

As soon as day appeared on the 13th, every one went cheerfully to work, in repairing that side of the boat which was most injured, which was quite refitted before night.  Next day the other side was repaired; and having loaded her with 450 penguins, they went aboard on the evening of the 14th, having been three days on shore.  While they were catching penguins on the 12th, they found a savage woman, who had hid herself in one of the holes.  At the time when Van Noort landed here, there was a band of savages on the island, by whom two of his men were slain; in revenge of which Van Noort had destroyed them all but this woman, who was then wounded, and who now shewed her wounds to the seamen.  She was tall and well-made; her hair cut quite close to her head, and her face painted, having a kind of cloak on her body, made of the skins of beasts and birds, neatly sewed together, and reaching down to her knees, besides which she