While we were in the neighbourhood of this island, the weather was extremely tempestuous, with long rolling billows from the southward, larger and higher than any I had seen before.  The winds were variable, but blew chiefly from the S.S.W.W. and W.N.W.  We had very seldom a gale to the eastward, so that we were prevented from keeping in a high south latitude, and were continually driving to the northward.

On the 4th, we found that the ship made a good deal of water, for having been so long labouring in high and turbulent seas, she was become very crazy; our sails also being much worn, were continually splitting, so that it was become necessary to keep the sail-maker constantly at work.  The people had hitherto enjoyed good health, but they now began to be affected with the scurvy.  While we were in the Strait of Magellan, I caused a little awning to be made, which I covered with a clean painted canvas, that had been allowed me for a floor-cloth to my cabin, and with this we caught so much rain-water, with but little trouble or attendance, that the people were never put to a short allowance of this important article:  The awning also afforded shelter from the inclemency of the weather, and to these precautions I imputed our having escaped the scurvy so long, though perhaps it was in some measure owing to the mixture of spirit of vitriol with the water that was thus preserved, our surgeon putting a small quantity into every cask when it was filled up.

On Saturday the 11th, we discovered a small, low, flat island, which appeared to be almost level with the water’s edge, and was covered with green trees:  As it was to the south and directly to windward of us, we could not fetch it.  It lies in latitude 22 deg.S., and longitude 141 deg. 34’W.; and we called it the Bishop of Osnaburgh’s Island, in honour of his majesty’s second son.[56]

[Footnote 56:  There is another island of this name, among these that were discovered by Captain Wallis.]

On the 12th, we fell in with two more small islands, which were covered with green trees, but appeared to be uninhabited.  We were close in with the southermost, which proved to be a slip of land in the form of a half-moon, low, flat, and sandy:  From the south end of it a reef runs out to the distance of about half a mile, on which the sea breaks with great fury.  We found no anchorage, but the boat landed.  It had a pleasant appearance, but afforded neither vegetables nor water; there were however many birds upon it, so tame that they suffered themselves to be taken by hand.  The other island very much resembles this, and is distant from it about five or six leagues:  They lie W.N.W. and E.S.E. of each other.  One of them is in latitude 20 deg. 38’S., longitude 146 deg.W.; the other 20 deg.34’S., longitude 146 deg. 15’ W., and we called them the Duke of Gloucester’s Islands; the variation here is five degrees east.  These islands are probably the land seen by Quiros, as the situation