Page:First Voyage Round the World.djvu/138

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60
PASSAGE OF THE STRAITS.

died. The other ship, named the Conception, not being able to follow that one, was always waiting for it, and fluttered hither and thither. But it lost its time, for the other took the road by night for returning. When this happened, at night the ship of the captain and the other ship went together to discover the other mouth to Garbin (S.W.), where, on always holding on our course, we found the same strait. But at the end[1] we arrived at a river which we named the River of Sardines, because we found a great quantity of them. So we remained there four days to wait for the other two ships. A short time after we sent a boat well supplied with men and provisions to discover the cape of the other sea: these remained three days in going and coming. They told us that they had found the cape, and the sea great and wide. At the joy which the captain-general had at this he began to cry, and he gave the name of Cape of Desire to this cape, as a thing which had been much desired for a long time. Having done that we turned back to find the two ships which were at the other side, but we only found the Conception, of which ship we asked what had become of her companion. To this the captain of the said ship, named John Serrano (who was pilot of the first ship which was lost as has been related), replied that he knew nothing of her, and that he had never seen her since she entered the mouth. However, we sought for her through all the strait, as far as the said mouth, by which she had taken her course to return. Besides that, the captain-general sent back the ship named the Victory as far as the entrance of the strait to see if the ship was there, and he told the people of this ship that if they did not find the ship they were looking for, they were to place an ensign on the summit of a small hill, with a letter inside a pot placed in the ground near the ensign, so that if the ship should by chance return, it might see that ensign, and also find the

  1. "A la fin."