Ocean's Story; or, Triumphs of Thirty Centuries: Maritime Adventures, Achievements, Explorations, Discoveries and Inventions; and of the Rise and Progress of Ship-Building and Ocean Navigation, from the Ark to the Iron SteamshipsGoodrich, Frank B. (Frank Boott)
History
Ocean's Story; or, Triumphs of Thirty Centuries: Maritime Adventures, Achievements, Explorations, Discoveries and Inventions; and of the Rise and Progress of Ship-Building and Ocean Navigation, from the Ark to the Iron Steamships
Goodrich, Frank B. (Frank Boott)
Discoveries in geography; Voyages and travels
Drake, after the loss of the pinnace, was driven again to the
southward, and, in the quaint language of the times, "fell in with
the uttermost part of the land towards the South Pole, where the
Atlantic Ocean and the South Sea meet in a large and free scope." He
saw the cape since called Cape Horn, and anchored there: he gave the
name of Elizabethides to all the islands lying in the neighborhood.
As he neither doubled nor named this cape, it remained for the daring
navigators Schouten and Lemaire to demonstrate its importance, by
passing around it from one ocean into the other, which Drake, it will
be observed, had not done. He went ashore, however, and, leaning over
a rock which extended the farthest into the sea, returned to the ship
and told the crew that he had been farther south than any man living.
He anchored at the island of Mocha on the 29th of November, having
coasted for four weeks to the northward along the South American shore.
He landed with ten men, and was attacked by the Indians, who took them
for Spaniards. Two of his men were killed, all of them disabled, and he
himself badly wounded with an arrow under the right eye. Not one of the
assailants was hurt. Drake made no attempt to take vengeance for this
unprovoked attack, as it was evident it was begun under the mistaken
idea that they were Spaniards, whose atrocities had made every native
of the country their enemy. He sailed for Peru on the same day.
Early in December he learned, from an Indian who was found fishing
in his canoe, that he had passed twenty miles beyond the port of
Valhario,--now Valparaiso; and that in this port lay a Spanish ship
well laden. Drake sailed for this place, where he found the ship riding
at anchor, with eight Spaniards and three negroes on board. These,
taking the new-comers for friends,--for the Spaniards had never yet
seen an enemy in this ocean,--welcomed them with drum and trumpet,
and opened a jar of Chili wine in which to drink their health. Thomas
Moore, the former captain of the Christopher pinnace, was the first to
board the unsuspecting craft. He laid lustily about him, upon which
the principal Spaniard crossed himself and jumped overboard. The rest
were easily secured under the hatches. The prize was rifled, and one
thousand seven hundred and seventy jars of Chili wine, sixty thousand
pieces of gold, and a number of strings of pearls, were taken from
her. The miserable town, consisting of nine families, who at once fled
to the interior, was next ransacked. A poor little church was robbed
of a silver chalice, two cruets, and a cloth with which the altar was
spread. A warehouse was forced to disgorge its store of Chili wine and
cedar planks. Thus did Drake, armed with the sanction of Elizabeth,
Queen of England, plunder a handful of inoffensive men securely
anchored in a peaceful roadstead, who saluted their coming with music
and with wine. Thus did Drake commit sacrilege in a Christian church,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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