CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE COAST OF PATAGONIA
For about ten days after the brig Miranda left Valparaiso she had good winds and fair weather, and her progress was satisfactory to all on board, but at the end of that time she entered upon a season of head winds and bad weather. The vessel behaved very well in the stormy days that followed, but she made very little headway. Her course was now laid toward the Gulf of Penas, after reaching which she would sail along the protected waterways between the chain of islands which lie along the coast and the mainland, and which lead into the Straits of Magellan.
When the weather at last changed and the sea became smoother, it was found that the working and straining of the masts during the violent weather had opened some of the seams of the brig, and that she was taking in water. She was a good vessel, but she was an old one, and she had had a rough time of it. The captain thanked his stars that she had not begun to leak before the storm.
The short-handed crew went to work at the pumps, but, after two days hard labor, it was found that the water in the hold steadily gained upon the pumps,
317
