The accounts of Wallis and Carteret are still more gloomy. The former concludes that part of his narrative with the following dismal and disheartening description: "Thus we quitted a dreary and inhospitable region, where we were in almost continual danger of shipwreck for near four months, having entered the strait on the 17th of December, and quitted it on the 11th of April 1767: a region where, in the midst of summer, the weather was cold, gloomy, and tempestuous, where the prospects had more the appearance of a chaos than of nature; and where for the most part the valleys were without herbage and the hills without wood." These records of Cordova and Wallis made me feel not a little apprehensive for the health of the crew, which could not be expected to escape uninjured through the rigours of such a climate. Nor were the narratives of Byron or Bougainville calculated to lessen my anxiety. In an account, however, of a voyage to the strait by M. A. Duclos Guyot, the following paragraph tended considerably to relieve my mind upon the subject:--"At length, on Saturday the 23d of March, we sailed out of that famous Strait, so much dreaded, after having experienced that there, as well as in other places, it was very fine, and very warm, and that for three-fourths of the time the sea was perfectly calm." In every view of the case, our proximity to the principal scene of action occasioned sensations of a peculiar nature, in which, however, those that were most agreeable and hopeful {11} preponderated. The officers and crews of both ships were healthy, and elated with the prospect before them; our vessels were in every respect strong and sea-worthy; and we were possessed of every comfort and resource necessary for encountering much greater difficulties than we had any reason to anticipate. * * * * * There has existed much difference of opinion as to the correct mode of spelling the name of the celebrated navigator who discovered this Strait. The French and English usually write it Magellan, and the Spaniards Magallanes; but by the Portuguese (and he was a native of Portugal) it is universally written Magalhaens. Admiral Burney and Mr. Dalrymple spell it Magalhanes, which mode I have elsewhere adopted, but I have since convinced myself of the propriety of following the Portuguese orthography for a name which, to this day, is very common both in Portugal and Brazil. * * * * * {12} CHAPTER II. Enter the Straits of Magalhaens (or Magellan), and anchor off Cape Possession--First Narrow--Gregory Bay--Patagonian Indians--Second Narrow--Elizabeth Island--Freshwater Bay--Fuegian Indians--Arrival at Port Famine.