A Voyage Round The World By Way Of The Great South Sea (1726) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: $ Second Arrival at the I/land 0/Juan Fernandes. MA T 6, 1720. We made the wef- termoft of the Iflands of Juan Fernandes, the body of it bearing N. E by N. diftant 12 leagues; and the day after the Carpenters compleated the boat, which would carry 3 hofhcads. On the nth, we faw the great Ifland of Ju;n Fernandes, bearing E. half S. by obfervation, the body of it lies in the latitude 33 deg. 25 min South. Here I ply'd off and on till the 21/?, but could not get off as much water as we daily expended, which made me think of anchoring in the road for a few hours, and in order to it, I prepared 20 tons of casks to raft afhore, then work'd in, and anchored, accord ing to the beft directions I had, in 40 fathom water, and made a warp, which was of the length of 3 hawfers and half, which was made faft to the rocks to fteady the fhip, and by whichwhich we haul'd our raft of cask afhore and aboard. The very next morning we were ready to go to fea, but had not the lead opportunity in 4 days. May 2 5. A hard gale of wind came out of the fea upon us (a thing very uncommon as has been reported) and brought in a great tumbling fwell, fo that in a few hours our cable (which was never wet before) parted: a diimal accident this, there being no means to be ufed, or the leaft prolpecl: of avoiding immediate deftruftion- But providence interpofed in our behalf fo far, that if We had ftruck but a cable's length farther to the Eaftward, or Weftward of the place where we did, we muft inevitably have perifh d. As foon as fhe touch'd the rocks we were obliged to hold faft by fome part, or o- ther, of the (hip, otherwife the violence of the fhocks fhe had in ftriking, might have been fufficient to have thrown us all out of her into the fea. Our main-maft, fore-maft, and mizen- top-maft went a...