central figure of a dramatic scene, as will appear later in this narrative. Next after San Thiago, Fuego (Fogo), the “burning island,” then throwing out volcanic flames, and lastly “Brava,” found in contrast a “most pleasant and sweet” isle, were passed. Then they “drew towards the line,” where they were becalmed for three weeks, but yet “subject to divers great stormes, terrible lightnings, and much thunder.” Along with this “miserie,” however, they enjoyed an abundance of fish, as “Dolphins, Bonitos, Flying fishes,” some of the latter falling into their ships. It was now known to the company that their next destination was America, at Brazil. From the moment of leaving the Cape Verde Islands, they sailed fifty-four days without sight of land. On the fifth of April the Brazilian coast presented itself to view. In the distance they saw fires on the coast. These they afterward learned were set by the natives when their ships were sighted, as a sacrifice to “the devils about which they use conjurations.” The custom of these natives, it seemed, whenever a strange ship approached the coast was to perform weird ceremonies to conjure the gathering of shoals and the outbreak of tempests by which the ship would be cast away. Two days afterward there actually came upon them a “mightie great storme both of lightning, rayne, and thunder,” during which they lost the “Christopher,” their captured canter. While sailing southward, however, they found her a few days later, and the place where she was met Drake called the “Cape of Joy.” Landing, they found no people, but the footprints they saw in the clay ground led them to believe that the inhabitants were “men of great statute,” if not giants. On or about the twenty-seventh of April they were at the great river La Plata. They merely entered it, and finding no good harbour bore to sea again. In bearing out the “Swan” was missed. They next made harbour in a fair bay where were a number of islands, on one of which were seen many “sea wolves” (seals). In early June they were anchored in another harbour, farther south, which they called “Seal Bay” because of the abundance of seal here. They killed from two hundred to three hundred of them, the chronicler averred, within an hour’s time. Again the “Swan” was found, and having become unseaworthy, she was stripped of her furnishings and burned. A few days later the “Christopher” was also discharged for the same reason. On the twentieth of June the fleet came to anchor at Port St. Julien, Patagonia, above the Strait of Magellan, giving entrance to the Pacific.