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In this desponding condition, with a crazy ship, a great scarcity of water, and a crew so universally diseased that there were not above ten foremast men in a watch capable of doing duty, and even some of these lame and unable to go aloft; under these disheartening circumstances, I say, we stood to the westward; and on the 9th of June, at daybreak, we at last discovered the long-wished-for island of Juan Fernandez.
To close then this subject, the importance of which alone inclined me to spend so much of mine and the reader's time about it: It is most evident, that, if such a settlement was made at Juan Fernandez, proper magazines erected, and a constant correspondence established between that island and the Terra Australis, these three consequences must absolutely follow from thence: 1.
In the mean time the Marques of Cadiz, the Count de Tendilla, the Count de Cabra, and Don Alonzo Fernandez, senior of Alcaudrete and Montemayor, drew up their forces in battle array on the plain below the hamlet, presenting a living barrier of loyal chivalry between the sovereigns and the city.
We sighted the far-famed island of Juan Fernandez, the scene of Robinson Crusoe's adventures, or rather those of the real Alexander Selkirk. The ship was hove-to when we were about two miles off shore, and the pinnace and jolly-boat were sent to obtain wood and water.
The air was deliciously pure, and the odor of the sea-weeds had something in it so healthful and inspiring that I was insensibly carried back to by-gone days. How short a time it seemed since I was a wanderer upon the rock-bound shores of Juan Fernandez, yet how many strange scenes I had passed through since then how much of the world I had seen, with its toils, and troubles, and vicissitudes!
They were behind bushes in the goat-pasture, and they were both very badly scared. "Well," said Señor Fernandez at last, "what have you been doing?" "Just playing bull-fight a little," Tonio answered in a very small voice. "Didn't you know that was my goat?" said Señor Fernandez severely. "What business have you driving it mad like that? Get up." Tonio got up. He was stiff and sore all over.
On February she sank the British ship Conway Castle off Corral in the South Pacific, and on March 14 she was caught near Juan Fernandez Island by the British cruisers Glasgow and Kent and the auxiliary cruiser Orama. An action ensued and after five minutes' fighting the Dresden hauled down her flag.
Amidst his military occupations, he found leisure to collect materials for a history of the period, to which he was further urged by the viceroy, Mendoza, Marques de Canete, who bestowed on him, as he tells us, the post of Chronicler of Peru. This mark of confidence in his literary capacity intimates higher attainments in Fernandez than might be inferred from the humble station that he occupied.
The lady, a pretty brunette, was their "compagna." She had escaped from her family and eloped with Fernandez, the engineer, but was apparently shared on communistic principles. Then, having been assured by Giannoli that I was to be trusted, they told me their story.
In the interval between these two voyages of Gonzales, Denis Fernandez, a gentleman of Lisbon, who had belonged to the household of the late king, fitted out a vessel for discovery under the patronage of Don Henry, with a determination to endeavour to penetrate farther to the southwards than any preceding navigator.
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