1765.

January.

resemblance to a fox. They are as big as a middle fized maftiff, and their fangs are remarkably long and fharp. There are great numbers of them upon this coaft, though it is not perhaps easy to guess how they first came hither, for these islands are at least one hundred leagues distant from the main: they burrow in the ground like a fox, and we have frequently feen pieces of feal which they have mangled, and the skins of penguins, lie fcattered about the mouth of their holes. To get rid of these creatures, our people set fire to the grafs, fo that the country was in a blaze as far as the eye could reach, for feveral days, and we could fee them running in great numbers to feek other quarters. I dug holes in many places, about two feet deep, to examine the foil, which I found first a black mould, and then a light clay. While we lay here, we fet up the armourer's forge on fhore, and completed a great deal of iron work that was much wanted. Our people had every morning an excellent breakfast made of portable foup, and wild celery, thickened with oat meal: neither was our attention confined wholly to ourselves, for the Surgeon of the Tamar furrounded a piece of ground near the watering place with a fence of turf, and planted it with many efculent vegetables as a garden, for the benefit of those who might hereafter come to this place. Of this harbour, and all the neighbouring iflands, I took poffeffion for his Majefly King George the Third of Great Britain, by the name of FALKLAND'S ISLANDS, and there is I think little reafon to doubt that they are the fame land to which Cowley gave the name of Pepys'

lfland.

In the printed account of Cowley's voyage, he fays, "We held our courfe S. W. till we came into the lati"tude of forty-feven degrees, where we saw land, the "fame being an ifland, not before known, laying to "the westward of us it was not inhabited, and I ' gave it the name of PEPYS' ISLAND. We found it a very commodious place for fhips to water at, and "take in wood, and it has a very good harbour, where a thousand fail of fhips may fafely ride. Here is great "plenty of fowls, and, we judge, abundance of fish,

"by

"by reason of the grounds being nothing but rocks 1765. " and fands." Jauuary.

To this account there is annexed a representation of Pepy's Ifland, in which names are given to several points and head-lands, and the harbour is called Admiralty-bay; yet it appears that Cowley had only a diftant view of it; for he immediately adds, "The wind being fo extraordinary high that we could not get "into it to water, we stood to the southward, shaping 66 our courfe S. S. W. till we came into the latitude of 53;" and though he says that " it was commodious 66 to take in wood," and it is known that there is no wood on Falkland's Islands, Pepys' Island and Falkland's Iflands may notwithstanding be the fame; for upon Falkland's Islands there are immense quantities of flags with narrow leaves, reeds and rushes which grow in clusters, fo as to form bushes about three feet high, and then shoot about fix or seven feet higher : thefe at a distance have greatly the appearance of wood, and were taken for wood by the French, who landed there, in the year 1764, as appears by Pernetty's account of their voyage. It has been suggested that the latitude of Pepys' Island might, in the M. S. from which the account of Cowley's voyage was printed, be expreffed in figures, which, if ill made, might equally resemble forty-seven, and fifty-one; and therefore as there is no island in these seas in latitude fortyfeven, and as Falkland's Inlands lie nearly in fifty-one, that fifty-one might reasonably be concluded to be the number for which the figures were intended to ftand: recourse therefore was had to the British Mufæum, and a manufcript journal of Cowley's was there found. In this manufcript no mention is made of an island not before known, to which he gave the name of Pepys' Inland, but land is mentioned in latitude fortyfeven degrees, forty minutes, expreffed in words at length, which exactly answers to the defcription of what is called Pepys Ifland in the printed account, and which here, he says, he supposed to be the islands of Sebald de Wert. This part of the manufcript is in the following words: " January 1683. This "month wee were in the latitude of forty-feaven de66 grees and forty minnetts, where wee efpied an ifland bearing

66

1765.

"bearing west from us; wee having the wind at caft January.north-eaft, wee bore away for it, it being too late

"for us to goe on fhoare, we lay bye all night. The "ifland feemed very pleasant to the eye, with many "woods, I may as well fay the whole land was woods. "There being a rock lying above water to the east"ward of it, where an innumerable company of fowles, "being of the bigneffe of a small goofe, which fowles "would ftrike at our men as they were aloft: fome of "them were killed and eat: they seemed to us very good, only tasted somewhat fishly. I failed along "that ifland to the fouthward, and about the fouth. "weft fide of the island there feemed to me to be a "good place for fhipps to ride: I would have had the "boat out to have gone into the harbour, but the "wind blew fresh, and they would not agree to go in

66

with it. Sailing a little further, keeping the lead, and "having fix and twenty, and feaven and twenty fathoms "water, untill wee came to a place where wee faw the "weeds ride, having the lead againe, found but sea

ven fathoms water. Fearing danger went about "the fhipp there, were then fearfull to ftay by the "land any longer, it being all rocky ground, but the "harbour feemed to be a good place for fhipps to ride "there; in the island seeming likewife to have water enough, there feemed to me to be harbour for five "hundred faile of fhipps. The going in but narrow " and the north fide of the entrance fhallow water "that I could fee, but I verily believe that there is "water enough for any fhipp to goe in on the fouth "fide, for there cannot be fo great a lack of water, but "muft needs fcowre a channell away at the ebbe deepe "enough for shipping to goe in. I would have had "them stood upon a wind all night, but they told me "they were not come out to go upon difcovery. We "faw likewife another ifland by this that night, which "made me thinke them to be the Sibble D'wards.

66

"The fame night we steered our course againe west fouth west, which was but our fouth-weft, the compaffe having two and twenty degrees variation eastwardly, keeping that courfe till wee came in the lati"tude of three and fifty degrees."

In both the printed and manufcript account, this land is faid to lie in latitude forty-feven, to be fituated to the weftward of the fhip when firft difcovered, to appear woody, to have an harbour where a great number of fhips might ride in fafety, and to be frequented by innumerable birds. It appears alfo, by both accounts, that the weather prevented his going on fore, and that he fteered from it W. S. W. till he came into latitude fifty-three: there can therefore be little doubt but that Cowley gave the name of Pepy's Ifland after he came home, to what he really fuppofed to be the island of Sebald de Wert, for which it is not difficult to affign several reafons; and though the fuppofition of a mistake of the figures does not appear to be well grounded, yet, there being no land in forty-feven, the evidence that what Cowley faw was Falkland's Islands, is very strong. The description of the country agrees in almost every particular, and even the map is of the fame general figure, with a ftreight running up the middle. The chart of Falkland's Inlands that accompanies this narrative, was laid down from the journals and drawings of captain Macbride, who was dispatched thither after my return, and circumnavigated the whole coaft the two principal Islands were probably called Falkland's Iflands by Strong, about the year 1689, as he is known to have given the name of Falkland's Sound to part of the ftreight which divides them. The Journal of this navigator is still unprinted in the British Mufæum. The first who faw these islands is fuppofed to be Captain Davies, the affociate of Cavendish, in 1592. In 1594, Sir Richard Hawkins faw land, fuppofed to be the fame, and in honour of his miftrefs, Queen Elizabeth, called them HAWKINS'S MAIDEN LAND. Long afterwards, they were seen by fome French fhips from Saint Maloes, and Frezier, probably, for that reafon, called them the Malouins, a name which has been fince adopted by the Spaniards.

Having continued in the harbour which I had called Port Egmont, till Sunday the 27th of January, we failed again at eight o'clock in the morning with the wind at S. S. W. but we were scarcely got out of the port before it began to blow very hard, and the weather

became

1765. became fo thick that we could not fee the rocky islands. January. I now moft heartily wished myself again at anchor in

Monday 28.

the harbour we had quitted; but in a fhort time we had the fatisfaction to fee the weather become clear, though it continued to blow very hard the whole day. At nine the entrance of Port Egmont harbour bore E. S. E. diftant two leagues; the two low iflands to the northward E. by N. diftant between three or four miles; and the rocky ifland W. N. diftant four leagues. At ten the two low iflands bore S. S. E. diftant four or five miles; and we then steered along the fhore eaft by the compafs, and after having run about five leagues, we faw a remarkable head-land, with a rock at a little distance from it, bearing E. S. E.

E. diftant three leagues. This head-land I called CAPE TAMAR. Having continued the fame course five leagues farther, we faw a rock about five miles from the main bearing N. E. at the distance of four or five leagues: this rock I called the EDISTONE, and then steered between it and a remarkable head-land which I called CAPE DOLPHIN, in the direction of E. N. E. five leagues farther. From Cape Tamar to Cape Dolphin, a distance of about eight leagues, the land forms, what I thought, a deep found, and called CARLISLE SOUND, but what has fince appeared to be the northern entrance of the ftreight between the two principal iflands. In the part that I fuppofed to be the bottom of the found, we faw an opening, which had the appearance of a harbour. From Cape Dolphin we fteered along the shore E N. fixteen leagues, to a low flat cape or head-land, and then brought to. In this day's run the land, for the most part, refembled the east fide of the coaft of Patagonia, not having fo much as a fingle tree, or even a bush, being all downs, with here and there a few of the high tufts of grass that we had feen at Port Egmont ; and in this account I am fure I am not mistaken, for I frequently failed within two miles of the fhore; fo that if there had been a fhrub as big as a goofe-berry bufh, I should have seen it. During the night we had forty fathom water with rocky ground.

The next morning, at four o'clock, we made fail, the low flat cape then bearing S. E. by E. diftant five leagues :