a good deal smaller than ours.[1] 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,[2] 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.[3]
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,[4] and it issues in another sea, which is called the peaceful sea;[5] it is surrounded by very great and high mountains covered with snow. In this place it was not possible to anchor[6] with the anchors, because no bottom was found, on which account they were forced to put the moorings[7] of twenty-five or thirty fathoms
