They entered another bay on the 1st February, which they called Popish bay, probably owing to some cross erected on its shore, and in which they were exposed to much danger.  On the 27th, they saw at a distance a huge mountain of ice in Penguin bay.  The 28th they passed Cape Deseado, or Desire, into the South Sea, bidding adieu to the many dismal prospects of the Straits of Magellan.  Their company, originally 248 men, was now reduced to 147, but was soon still farther lessened by losing company of the Henry Frederick, which never rejoined.  Waiting for that ship in vain till the 12th March, they sailed to the island of Mocha on the coast of Chili, in lat. 38 deg. 22’ S. and six miles [twenty English] from the continent.  This island is remarkable by a high mountain in the middle, which is cloven at the top, and whence a water-course descends into the vale land at its foot.  They here bartered knives and hatchets with the natives for sheep, poultry, maize, bartulas,[76] and other fruits.  The town consisted of about fifty straw huts, where the Dutch were regaled with a sour kind of drink, called cici, made of maiz steeped in water, which is the favourite drink of the Chilese at their feasts.  Polygamy is much practised among these people, who buy as many wives as they can afford to maintain; so that a man who has many daughters, especially if they be handsome, is accounted rich.  If one man kill another, he is judged by the relations of the deceased, as they have no laws or magistrates among them, so that the murderer may sometimes buy off his punishment by giving a drinking-bout of cici.  Their cloathing is manufactured from the wool of a large kind of sheep, which animal they also employ to carry burdens.  They would not sell any of these, but parted freely with another kind, not very different.

[Footnote 76:  This probably means battatas or potatoes, a native production of Chili.—­E.]

From thence they went to the island of St Mary, in lat. 37 deg.  S. eighteen miles [ninety-five English] from Mocha, where they fell in with a Spanish ship carrying lard and meal from Conception to Valdivia in Araucania, which they chased and took.  The pilot of this ship informed them that they would not be able to return to the island of St Mary, owing to the south wind, and that two Spanish ships of war were waiting for them at Arica.  Upon this information they resolved to sail for Valparaiso, and by that means quite lost all chance of being rejoined by the Henry Frederick, which might otherwise have got up with them.  Besides, they concluded that the missing ship had failed to find St Mary’s isle, owing to its being wrong placed in the map of Plancius, in lat. 38 deg.  S. which error they themselves had fallen into, had they not been set right by the observations of Mr Mellish.  They were farther confirmed in the resolution of not returning to the island of St Mary, by hearing of the misfortune which had there