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No vessel dared to venture out of port excepting under escort of powerful men-of-war, and even then they were not always secure from molestation. Exports from Central and South America were sent to Europe by way of the Strait of Magellan, and little or none went through the passes between the Bahamas and the Caribbees.
This error had been adopted by various authors without due examination, some of whom had likewise taken from Magellan the credit of having discovered the strait which goes by his name, and had given it to Behem.
It was in December, 1577, that he started on the expedition during which he visited the Pacific coast as here described. It was a freebooting enterprise. Drake sailed through the Strait of Magellan. After visiting California he crossed the Pacific, and, reaching England by way of the Cape of Good Hope in 1580, Drake became the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe.
Fortunately, we met the tug on our way, and returned in tow of her to the yacht. Then, after settling a few bills, and obtaining our bill of health, we got the anchor up, and proceeded down the river under sail. Between one and two o'clock we commenced steaming, and in the course of the evening were clear of the River Plate and fairly on our way to the Straits of Magellan.
When Drake returned from the Straits of Magellan and, powdered and beflunkied, told his lies at fashionable London dinners, no doubt he was believed. And his crew, let loose on the beer-shops, gathered each his circle of listeners, drank at his admirers' expense, and yarned far into the night. It was worth one's while to be a traveler in those times. But traveling has fallen to the yellow leaf.
But this was a scheme that, however prudent, was no ways relished by the generality of his people, for, being quite jaded with the distresses and dangers they had already run through, they could not think of prosecuting an enterprise further which had hitherto proved so disastrous, and, therefore, the common resolution was to lengthen the long-boat, and with that and the rest of the boats to steer to the southward, to pass through the Straits of Magellan, and to range along the east side of South America till they should arrive at Brazil, where they doubted not to be well received, and to procure a passage to Great Britain.
As if ashamed of her failure, Nature keeps this ungainly child hidden away at the ends of the earth, in the Straits of Magellan, and on the abased sea-story of Rodondo. But look, what are yon wobegone regiments drawn up on the next shelf above? what rank and file of large strange fowl? what sea Friars of Orders Gray? Pelicans.
I have had a great desire to know her, I confess, but she is still like the bottome of the map, terra incognita. I have been a long tyme hovering about the Magellan streights, but have made no new discoveries. Ri. Ha! this is not counterfeit, I dare trust my owne Judgment; tis a very rich one. I am confirmed, and will scale them up agen. My Ladies woman Sir Walter Littlelands Daughter and heire!
Magellan was killed at the island of Mactan, on April 26, 1521; and Duarte, the second in command, who succeeded him, imprudently accepting an invitation from the chief of Cebu to a feast, was, with twenty companions, massacred. Of all the Spaniards present, only one escaped. After these and various other misfortunes, only one vessel of the squadron, the Victoria, returned to Spain.
From the Strait of Magellan to the Colorado, a distance of about eight hundred miles, the face of the country is everywhere composed of shingle: the pebbles are chiefly of porphyry, and probably owe their origin to the rocks of the Cordillera. North of the Colorado this bed thins out, and the pebbles become exceedingly small, and here the characteristic vegetation of Patagonia ceases.
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