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Updated: June 4, 2025
As there was no convenient anchorage at this place, the ground being extremely rough, Schouten proceeded on his voyage to the S.W. meaning to pursue the originally intended discovery of a southern continent. The 18th May, being in lat. 16° 5' S. and the west wind becoming very unsteady, they began to consult as to the farther prosecution of their voyage.
The rest of the canoes came rushing on from every side, the people in them throwing showers of heavy stones on board. As they did so Captain Schouten ordered his crew to open upon them with musketry, and at the same time the great guns, which had been loaded with bullets and nails, were fired right down on the surrounding canoes.
On the 13th January, 1616, Lemaire and Schouten arrived at the Sebaldine Islands, discovered by Sebald de Weerdt, and followed the coast of Tierra del Fuego at a short distance from land. The coast ran east-quarter-south-east, and was skirted by high mountains covered with snow.
They had also another object in view: in all the maps of the world of the sixteenth century, a great southern continent is laid down. In 1606, Quiros, a Spanish navigator, had searched in vain for this continent; and La Maire and Schouten, in their voyage, resolved to look for it, as well as for a new passage to India.
Schouten represented that they were now at least 1600 leagues westward from the coast of Peru, without having made the expected discovery of a southern land, of which there was now no great probability of success, having already sailed much farther west than they at first intended.
However, I supported my own and the spirits of my little company by telling them of the early navigators; how Columbus, Candish, Drake, Schouten and other heroic marine worthies of distant times had navigated the globe, discovered new worlds, penetrated into the most secret solitudes of the deep without any notion of longitude and with no better instruments to take the sun's height than the forestaff and astrolabe.
In consequence of this determination, it was agreed that Le Maire should advance half of the necessary funds for the expence of the proposed voyage, while Schouten and his friends were to advance the other moiety.
On the 24th of January at mid-day, they sighted its extreme point, but eastward stretched some more land, which also appeared to be of great elevation. The distance between these two islands, according to the general opinion, appeared to be about twenty-four miles, and Schouten entered the strait which divided them.
The ship being completely supplied with fresh water on the 28th, Schouten and Le Maire went ashore with the trumpets, with which music the king was highly gratified. He told them of his wars with the inhabitants of the other island, and shewed several caves and thickets where they were in use to place ambuscades.
With this view he applied to William Cornelison Schouten of Horn, a man in easy circumstances, deservedly famous for his great skill in maritime affairs, and his extensive knowledge of trade in the Indies, having been thrice there in the different characters of supercargo, pilot, and master. Callender, II. 217.
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