Going from thence in the month of December, along the coast of Guinea, to the latitude of 12 deg.  S. they crossed the Atlantic to the opposite coast of Brazil, where they came to soundings on a sandy bottom at eighty fathoms deep.  Sailing down the coast of Brazil, when in lat. 4 deg.  S. they observed the sea to be as red as blood, occasioned by a prodigious shoal of red shrimps, which lay upon the water in great patches for many leagues together.  They likewise saw vast numbers of seals, and a great many whales.  Holding on their course to lat. 47 deg.  S. they discovered an island not known before, which Cowley named Pepy’s Island,[149] in honour of Samuel Pepys, secretary to the Duke of York when Lord High Admiral of England, a great patron of seamen.  This island has a very good harbour, in which 1000 ships might ride at anchor, and is a very commodious place for procuring both wood and water.  It abounded in sea-fowl, and the shore, being either rocks or sand, promised fair for fish.

[Footnote 149:  An island in the southern Atlantic, in lat. 46 deg. 34’ S. called Isle Grande, is supposed to be the discovery of Cowley.  According to Dalrymple, it is in long. 46 deg. 40’ W. while the map published along with Cook’s Voyages places it in long. 35 deg. 40’ W. from Greenwich.—­E.]

In January 1684 they bore away for the Straits of Magellan, and on the 28th of that month fell in with the Sebaldine or Falkland islands, in lat. 51 deg. 25’ S. Then steering S.W. by W. to the lat. of 53 deg.  S. they made the Terra del Fuego.  Finding great ripplings near the Straits of Le Maire, they resolved to go round the east end of States Land, as had been done by Captain Sharp in 1681, who first discovered it to be an island, naming it Albemarle island.  A prodigious storm came on upon the 14th February, which lasted between a fortnight and three weeks, and drove them into lat. 63 deg. 30’ S. This storm was attended by such torrents of rain, that they saved twenty-three barrels of water, besides dressing their victuals all that time in rain water.[150] The weather also was so excessively cold, that they could bear to drink three quarts of burnt brandy a man in twenty-four hours, without being intoxicated.

[Footnote 150:  It was discovered by the great navigator Captain Cook, who at one time penetrated to lat. 71 deg. 10’ S. that the solid ice found at sea in high southern latitudes affords perfectly fresh water, when the first meltings are thrown away.—­E.]

When the storm abated, they steered N.E. being then considerably to the west of Cape Horn, and got again into warm weather.  In lat. 40 deg.  S. they fell in with an English ship, the Nicholas of London, of 26 guns, commanded by Captain John Eaton, with whom they joined company.  They sailed together to the island of Juan Fernandez, where they arrived on the 23d March, and anchored in a bay at the south end of the island in twenty-five fathoms.  Captain