In February a severe storm separated the fleet off the river Plate and Buenos Ayres, and as Cavendish had not appointed any spot for meeting, they were some time before they discovered one another in Port Desire. When they did meet, Davis found the _Roebuck_ seriously damaged, and heard that the _Dainty_, his own ship, had deserted and gone home. This was the first bitter disappointment, for it was in the _Dainty_ that Davis had intended to go on with his explorations northward. There were some who suggested that Cavendish wished to knock on the head Davis's nonsense about Arctic exploring, and they asserted that Cavendish had told the crew of the _Dainty_ that he wanted them to go into the river Plate, but that afterwards they might return home with all his heart. Cavendish abandoned his ship, the _Leicester_, because he complained that "he was matched with the most abject-minded and mutinous company that ever was carried out of England by man living, for they never ceased to mutiny against him." So he remained on board the _Desire_ as the guest of Captain Davis. Port Desire, a good many miles north of the Straits of Magellan, was a very dreary spot to rest in; steep white cliffs stained by running water stretched for two miles across the bay; the soil inland was poor, and water was scarce. The only thing the sailors could find was a sweet-smelling herb which protected them from scurvy. Nine miles to the south was Penguin Island, the home of many seals. On the 20th of March they started again, and reached the straits on the 8th of April. At first the view is desolate and bare, but as you pass the two narrows and enter the long reach, which runs north and south for a hundred miles, the hills become thickly wooded with winter's bark and an evergreen beech, most of them draped in moss and set deep in arbutus and berberis. High mountains capped with snow stand up to the south, while humming-birds skimmed the trailing fuchsias. As they reached the dark frowning rock called Cape Froward, a wintry gale met them, snowstorms burst upon them, and their only food was mussels and limpets; they had to anchor for shelter in a little bay for more than a month. Anthony Knivet, one of the crew of the _Leicester_, thus described the intense cold: "When I came on board with wet feet and began pulling off my stockings, the toes came off with them: 'tis true! and a shipmate of mine, Harris by name, lost his nose entirely; for, as he was going to blow it with his fingers, he cast it incontinently into the fire." Cavendish now wanted to go back, but Davis assured him the snowstorms would end, and all would be well, if only they would persevere. "Then we will go back to the Brazilian coast," said Cavendish, "and obtain supplies." So they sailed back through the straits, Cavendish having returned to his own ship. At Cape Famine Cavendish landed all the sick from the _Leicester_, and left them to starve from damp, cold, and hunger.