The indigenous Brazilian women are very fruitful, and have easy labours, on which occasion they retire into the woods, and bring forth alone, and return home after washing themselves and their child; the husbands lying a-bed for the first twenty-four hours, being treated as if they had endured the pains of child-birth.  The Tapoyers, who inhabit the inland country to the west, are the most barbarous of the natives, being taller and stronger than any of the other tribes, and indeed than most Europeans.  They wear, by way of ornament, little sticks thrust through their cheeks and underlips, and are said to be cannibals, using poisoned arrows and darts.  They live chiefly by hunting and fishing, shifting their habitations according to the seasons.  Their kings, or chiefs, are distinguished by a particular manner of shaving their crowns, and by wearing their nails very long.  Their priests are sorcerers, making the people believe that the devils appear to them in the form of certain insects, and they perform their diabolical worship in the night, when the women make dismal howlings, in which consists their principal devotion.  They allow polygamy, yet punish adultery with death.  When the young women are marriageable, but not courted, their mothers carry them to the chiefs, who deflower them, and this is deemed a great honour.  Some of these people were considerably civilized by the Dutch, while they possessed a part of Brazil, and did them good service under the conduct of their native chiefs.

Leaving Isla Grande on the 30th November, we continued our voyage far to the south, where we endured great cold, owing to which, a third part of both ships companies fell sick while passing round Cape Horn, for which reason we bore away for the island of Juan Fernandez, which we had some difficulty to find, owing to its being laid down differently in all the charts.  Even Captain Dampier was much at a loss, though he had been there so often, and had as it were a map of the island in his head, which exactly agreed with it when we came there.  This ought to induce sea-officers to prefer their own proper business to amusement, since, with all this knowledge, we were forced to make the main land of Chili, in order to find this island, and did not strike it at the last without considerable difficulty.

We arrived at the island of Juan Fernandez on the 1st February 1709, and having a good observation the day before, when we found our lat. 34 deg. 10’ S.[219] In the afternoon we hoisted out our pinnace, in which Captain Dover set off to go on shore, though not less than four leagues from the ship.  As it grew dark, we observed a light on shore, which some were of opinion was from our boat, but it was evidently too large for that, and we hung up a light to direct our boat, firing our quarter-deck gun, and showing lights in our mizen and fore shrouds, that our boat might find us, as we had fallen to leeward of the island.  Our boat came aboard again about two in the morning,