had done before, our only anchor being to seaward.  We here continued till the 20th of October; and being unable to continue longer, through the extremity of famine, we again put off into the channel on the 22d, the weather being then reasonably calm.  Before night the wind blew hard at W.N.W.  The storm waxed so violent that our men could scarcely stand to their labour; and the straits being full of turnings and windings, we had to trust entirely to the discretion of the captain and master to guide the ship during the darkness of the night, when we could see no shore, and the straits were in some places scarcely three miles broad.  When we first passed these straits, our captain made so excellent a draught of them, as I am confident cannot in any sort be made more correct.  Which draught he and the master so carefully considered, that they had every turning, creek, and head-land so perfectly in their memory, as enabled them, even in the deepest darkness of the night, undoubtingly to convey the ship through that crooked channel.

The 25th October we came to an island in the straits, named Penguine Isle, where the boat was sent ashore to seek relief, as it abounded with birds, and the weather was calm; so we came to anchor near the island, in seven fathoms.  While the boat was ashore, where we got abundance of penguins, there rose a sudden storm, by which our ship was driven over a breach, and our boat sunk at the shore.  Captain Cotton and the lieutenant, who were both on shore, leapt into the boat, and freed it of water, throwing away the birds, and with great difficulty got back to the ship.  All this time the ship was driving upon the lee-shore; and when we got on board, we helped to weigh the anchor and make sail.  Thus, in a severe storm, we got clear of the straits on the 27th October; and on the 30th we got to that Penguin Island which is three leagues from Port Desire, where we purposed to seek relief.  Immediately on coming to this isle, our boat was sent ashore, and returned laden with birds and eggs, the men reporting that the penguins were so thick on the isle, that even ships might be laden with them, as they could not step without treading on these birds; at which news we greatly rejoiced.

Then the captain appointed Charles Parker and Edmund Smith, with twenty others, to go on shore, and remain on the island, on purpose to kill and dry these penguins:  promising to send others when the ship was safe in harbour, not only for expedition, but to save the small store of victuals that remained in the ship.  But Parker and Smith, with the rest of their faction, remembering that this was the place where they intended formerly to have slain the captain and master, thought it was meant here to leave them on shore out of revenge, and refused to land.  After some altercation, these men were allowed to proceed in the ship, and ten others were left in the island.  The last day of October we entered the harbour of Port Desire.  The master, having at our being there before taken notice of every creek in the river, ran our ship aground in a very convenient place on the sandy ooze, laying our anchor out to seawards, and mooring her with the running ropes to stakes on shore, in which situation the ship remained till our departure.