charge to our care; and we were accordingly ordered to divide the task equally between us.  Yet, notwithstanding our utmost vigilance and care, frequent robberies were committed upon our trust, the tent being accessible in more than one place.  And one night when I had the watch, hearing a stir within, I came unawares upon the thief and presenting a pistol to his breast, obliged him to submit to be tied up to a post till I had an opportunity of securing him more effectually.  Depredations continued to be made on our reserved stock, notwithstanding the great hazard attending such attempts; for our common safety made it necessary to punish them with the utmost rigour.  This will not be wondered at, when it is known how little the allowance which might consistently be dispensed from thence was proportionable to our common exigencies, so that our daily and nightly task of roving after food was not in the least relaxed thereby; and all put together was so far from answering our necessities, that many at this time perished with hunger.  A boy, when no other eatables could be found, having picked up the liver of one of the drowned men, (whose carcase had been torn to pieces by the force with which the sea drove it among the rocks) was with difficulty withheld from making a meal of it.  The men were so assiduous in their research after the few things which drove from the wreck, that in order to have no sharers of their good fortune, they examined the shore no less by night than by day; so that many of them who were less alert, or not so fortunate as their neighbours, perished with hunger, or were driven to the last extremity.  It must be observed, that on the 14th of May we were cast away, and it was not till the twenty-fifth of this month that provision was served regularly from the store-tent.

The land we were now settled upon was about 90 leagues to the northward of the western mouth of the Straits of Magellan, in the latitude of between 47 and 48 deg. south, from whence we could plainly see the Cordilleras; and by two lagoons on the north and south of us, stretching towards those mountains, we conjectured it was an island.  But as yet we had no means of informing ourselves perfectly whether it was an island or the main; for besides that the inland parts at little distance from us seemed impracticable, from the exceeding great thickness of the wood, we had hitherto been in such confusion and want, (each finding full employment for his time, in scraping together a wretched subsistence, and providing shelter against the cold and rain) that no party could be formed to go upon discoveries.  The climate and season too were utterly unfavourable to adventurers; and the coast, as far as our eye could stretch seaward, a scene of such dismal breakers as would discourage the most daring from making attempts in small boats.  Nor were we assisted in our enquiries by any observation that could be made from that eminence we called Mount Misery, toward land, our prospect that