incense, and ostriches, foxes, sparrows, and rabbits[198] a good deal smaller than ours.[199] We set up at the top of the highest mountain which was there a very large cross, as a sign that this country belonged to the King of Spain; and we gave to this mountain the name of Mount of Christ. Departing thence, we found in fifty-one degrees less one-third (50° 40′ S.), in the Antarctic, a river of fresh water, which was near causing us to be lost, from the great winds which it sent out; but God, of his favour, aided us. We were about two months in this river, as it supplied fresh water and a kind of fish an ell long, and very scaly,[200] which is good to eat. Before going away, the captain chose that all should confess and receive the body of our Lord like good Christians. CHAPTER.[201] After going and taking the course to the fifty-second degree of the said Antarctic sky, on the day of the Eleven Thousand Virgins [October 21], we found, by a miracle, a strait which we called the Cape of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, this strait is a hundred and ten leagues long, which are four hundred and forty miles, and almost as wide as less than half a league,[202] and it issues in another sea, which is called the peaceful sea;[203] it is surrounded by very great and high mountains covered with snow. In this place it was not possible to anchor[204] with the anchors, because no bottom was found, on which account they were forced to put the moorings[205] of twenty-five or thirty fathoms length on shore. This strait was a round place surrounded by mountains, as I have said, and the greater number of the sailors thought that there was no place by which to go out thence to enter into the peaceful sea. But the captain-general said that there was another strait for going out, and said that he knew it well, because he had seen it by a marine chart of the King of Portugal, which map had been made by a great pilot and mariner named Martin of Bohemia.[206] The captain sent on before two of his ships, one named _St. Anthony_ and the other the _Conception_, to seek for and discover the outlet of this strait, which was called the Cape de la Baya. And we, with the other two ships, that is to say, the flagship named _Trinitate_, and the other the _Victory_, remained waiting for them within the Bay, where in the night we had a great storm, which lasted till the next day at midday, and during which we were forced to weigh the anchors and let the ships go hither and thither about the bay. The other two ships met with such a head wind[207] that they could not weather[208] a cape which the bay made almost at its extremity; wishing to come to us, they were near being driven to beach the ships.[209] But, on approaching the extremity of the bay, and whilst expecting to be lost, they saw a small mouth, which did not resemble a mouth but a corner,[210] and (like people giving up hope[211]) they threw themselves into it, so that by force they