But that which furnished us with the most delicious repasts at this island remains still to be described. This was the fish with which the whole bay was most plentifully stored, and with the greatest variety: for we found here cod of a prodigious size, and by the report of some of our crew, who had been formerly employed in the Newfoundland fishery, not in less plenty than is to be met with on the banks of that island. We caught also cavallies, gropers, large breams, maids, silver fish, congers of a peculiar kind, and above all, a black fish which we most esteemed, called by some a chimney-sweeper, in shape resembling a carp. The beach indeed is everywhere so full of rocks and loose stones that there is no possibility of haling the Seyne; but with hooks and lines we caught what numbers we pleased, so that a boat with two or three lines would return loaded with fish in about {121} two or three hours' time. The only interruption we ever met with arose from great quantities of dog-fish and large sharks, which sometimes attended our boats and prevented our sport. Besides the fish we have already mentioned, we found here one delicacy in greater perfection, both as to size, flavour, and quantity, than is perhaps to be met with in any other part of the world. This was sea crayfish; they generally weighed eight or nine pounds apiece, were of a most excellent taste, and lay in such abundance near the water's edge, that the boat-hooks often struck into them in putting the boat to and from the shore. These are the most material articles relating to the accommodations, soil, vegetables, animals, and other productions of the island of Juan Fernandes: by which it must appear how properly that place was adapted for recovering us from the deplorable situation to which our tedious and unfortunate navigation round Cape Horn had reduced us. And having thus given the reader some idea of the site and circumstances of this place, which was to be our residence for three months, I shall now proceed in the next chapter to relate all that occurred to us in that interval, resuming my narration from the 18th day of June, being the day in which the _Tryal_ sloop, having by a squall been driven out to sea three days before, came again to her moorings, the day in which we finished the sending our sick on shore, and about eight days after our first anchoring at this island. {122} CHAPTER II THE ARRIVAL OF THE "GLOUCESTER" AND THE "ANNA" PINK AT THE ISLAND OF JUAN FERNANDES, AND THE TRANSACTIONS AT THAT PLACE DURING THIS INTERVAL