and its inhabitants Patagons, meaning to signify that they were five cubits, or seven feet and a half high.  Hence, as the Portuguese are not commonly very tall, we need not wonder if they styled them giants.  If we take the usual proportion of the human foot, as between a fifth and a sixth part of the height of the whole body, the account given by Magellan agrees very exactly with this fact afforded us by Mr Candish; and it will be seen in the sequel, that this is not falsified by any of our subsequent navigators.  When any of these savages die, he is buried in a grave constructed of stones near the sea-side, all his darts being fastened about his tomb, and his treasure, consisting of shells, laid under his head.

[Footnote 48:  Without meaning to impugn the received opinion, that the Patagons are beyond the ordinary size of man, it may be permitted to say, that the evidence, in the text, the only one here adduced, is altogether inconclusive; and the subsequent reflections are evidently those of Harris, not of Candish.—­E.]

They left Port Desire on the 28th December, and anchored near an island three leagues to the southward.  The 30th they came to a rock, much like the Eddystone at Plymouth, about five leagues off the land, in lat 48 deg. 30’ S. and within a mile of it had soundings in eight fathoms, on rocky ground.  Continuing their course along shore S.S.W. they found vast numbers of seals every where on the coast.  January 2d, 1587, they fell in with a great white cape in lat. 52 deg.  S. and had seven fathoms within a league of the cape.  Next day they came to another cape, in lat. 52 deg. 45’ S. whence runs a long beach about a league to the southwards, reaching to the opening into the Straits of Magellan.[49] January 6th, they entered the straits, which they found in some places five or six leagues wide, but in others considerably narrower.  The 7th, between the mouth of the straits and its narrowest part, they took a Spaniard, who had been left there with twenty-three others of that nation, being all that remained alive of four hundred, who had been landed three years before in these straits.  This Spaniard shewed them the hull of a small bark, supposed to have been left by Sir Francis Drake.

[Footnote 49:  The cape at the north side of the eastern entrance into the Straits of Magellan, is named Cape Virgin, and is in lat 52 deg. 28’ S. The great white cape in lat. 52 deg.  S. is not so easily ascertained.  Cape Blanco, on this coast, is in lat. 47 deg.  S. which cannot have any reference to the white cape of the text.—­E.]