June, and reached the neighbourhood of insignificance. No sooner had the channel Rio by the 30th. There they spent a fort- that bears his name been discovered, than night taking in wood and water, without it took its place at once and for ever as, seeing, or being seen, by the Portuguese. par excellence, the bogey of the seas. On the 20th of September they entered Modern experience, indeed, has shorn it Port Desire, in Patagonia, and taking ad- of many terrors. Put with its gloomy vantage of the first spring-tide, laid their shores, its labyrinthine windings, its invessels high and dry on the beach. Nec- comprehensibie winds, and still more tanessary repairs, and the capture of seals talizing currents, it is still sufficiently forand penguins for sea-stores occupied them midable. It opens about the centre of the pretty closely for another month, during bay of which Cape Virgin forms the northwhich they saw nothing of the natives. ern extremity. The entrance is a narrow The latter was annoying, for the hope of pass, running east and west some three seeing the giants-11 feet high, accord-miles across, and about ten in length. ing to report — was one of the great at- This pass ends in a circular gulf, measurtractions of the voyage. At last, on the ing thirty miles or thereabouts from side 20th of October, they caught sight of a to side. In the western side of this gulf group of Patagonians looming extremely opens a second gut very similar to the large through a thin mist on the other first. And from thence the channel flows side of the harbour. Two boats, with like some mighty river― southward for Van Noort himself as leader, went in one hundred miles and west north-westchase; but, by the time the northern ward for nigh two hundred more, until it shore was gained, the Patagonians had terminates among the numerous islands vanished. Leaving five men in charge of that rise like a barrier between it and the the boats, Van Noort started with the re- Pacific. mainder to scour the country. Towards nightfall he returned, disappointed and weary, to find that the Patagonians had visited the boats before him. The men in charge had been strictly enjoined to keep afloat out of harm's way, and for a time they had obeyed the order. It was bitter cold, however, and as the coast seemed clear, they thought they might venture ashore to warm their benubmed limbs with a run; and a sharp run they very soon got, stumbling at once into the midst of a group of Patagonians, who seemed to have risen out of the earth. Only two of the seamen one severely wounded succeeded in regaining the boats. The other three were found dead on the strand, stuck all over with arrows. Nor, while lamenting the mishap, could their comrades refrain from admiring the vigour with which the barbarian shafts had been propelled, most of them having pierced the victims from side to side. This was their first and last view of the giants.

The Dutchmen spent just twenty days in attempting to gain the first pass, entering it no less than four times to be as often blown out again. Here commenced a quarrel between Van Noort and his second in command, Jacob Klaus, which was destined to end very seriously for the latter. The principal attributed most of his failures to his second, who hung back when he should have pressed forward, refused to assist the Maurice on more occasions than one, met remonstrance with insolence, and wound up by denying his chief's authority in writing. Van Noort was not the man to be treated thus with impunity, but he felt that it was no time to deal with such a matter, while involved in the difficulties of the passage. So he bridled his temper, put the letter aside, and bided his time.

The squadron cleared the first pass on the 25th of November, and the second twentyfour hours later. Thenceforward the navigation was comparatively easy. The vesNine days afterwards they sailed again, sels were beaten indeed by storms and anchoring on the 5th of November under impeded by currents, and made but slow Cape Virgin, at the eastern entrance of progress. Still they went forward; and of Magellan's Straits. This celebrated never again had they to wrestle so fiercely pass was decidedly the leading plague of with the winds and seas of the Straits as old-world navigators. The Norwegian at their entrance. On the 27th of Novemmaelstrom had been something of a terror ber the adventurers won a victory that in its time; so had Cape Raz and its pret- did them little honour. Discovering a ty little cluster of mantraps, the Pen- small tribe of Fuegians on one of the marks; while the stormy promontory had islands, they landed and stormed their den couched for generations, like a nightmare, -a cavern half-way up a cliff that rose on the breast of naval enterprise. But by the verge of the sea. The men of the Magellan reduced all these to comparative 'tribe attempted to bar the ascent, but

they were soon driven in. As the Dutch Northward they sped before the Souththronged fiercely after them the native ern gale that appears perpetual on that women heaped their children in a corner, coast, making good progress, and suffering and flung themselves as a rampart before no mishap for a fortnight. On the mornthem, while the warriors formed a line be- ing of the 12th of March, however, only tween them and the foe. And well and two of the ships, the Maurice and the Convaliantly did these poor savages make cord, were to " be seen together. The head against the better weapons and su- Frederick-Henry had disappeared during perior numbers of the Europeans. Not the night and for ever. There were one of them lowered his hand, or cried for many speculations as to her fate. Some quarter, or yielded an inch. They strug- supposed that she foundered during the gled to the end, and fell where they darkness; others that she had gone to fought; the fray closed only with the pieces on the iron-bound coast; and not a slaughter of the last of them. Then it few that she had returned southwards in was found that many of the women and search of the deserted vice-admiral. Van children had been slain or wounded by Noort wasted no time in seeking her. He random strokes. As for the Hollanders, did not even touch at the appointed renfour of them were hurt, and these but dezvous, or suffer her absence to make slightly. What followed in the bloody any change in his plans, but went forward cave is not told. Perhaps it is as well. as steadily and boldly as ever to harry These European were the fiercest speci- the whole coast of Spanish America with mens of a fierce generation - -a hard-somewhat less than 100 men. hearted race who set little store by human Nine days after he reached the Island life at any time, and with whom a savage was an animal of much the same estimation as a wolf. They returned to their ships, carrying with them six of the children.

of Mocha, off the southern extremity of Chili. Here a man sentenced to be marooned, accepting an alternative occasionally offered to such criminals, ventured with a few glittering trifles among the In a few days more they met another natives, and as he happened to escape celebrated navigator Sebald de Wart from the ordeal with his life, he received - who was crossing from the Pacific. And his pardon, according to the custom of the shortly afterwards the second in command sea. The intercourse thus opened, Van filled up the measure of his offences by Noort maintained so long as he remained weighing anchor without consulting his in the neighbourhood. He made several chief, and carrying a press of sail until he remarks on the people and their habits, had run out of sight. On the 22nd of sufficiently curious at that period, but December Van Noort parted company hardly worth repeating now; with the folwith De Wart; and on Christmas Day he lowing exception perhaps :- He says that overtook the run-a-way. On the 29th he they were divided into tribes, each of called a council, which placed the delin- which dwelt in a gathering of hovels termed quent in close arrest. The trial took by courtesy a town; that they were much place three weeks later at their last an- addicted to a species of strong drink prechorage in the Straits, and the vice-ad-pared from maize by a process odious to miral was sentenced to be marooned. European delicacy; and that they were This sentence was carried out on the 26th lively, sociable," and loving one another of February, 1600, with such rigour, that, having only one small drawback says the chronicler of the expedition, "in pensity to homicide when under the ina very few days he must infallibly have fluence of their favourite liquor. These died of famine, or been devoured by the "peculiarities," by the way, appear to us savages," who, we may remark, really not altogether peculiar to the men of had surprised, and, as it was supposed, Mocha. eaten two seamen not many days before. Van Noort took leave of these rollicking The execution was followed by solemn innocents on the 24th of March, and prayer; and this, in turn, by an exhorta-caught sight of a small vessel near the tion in which the event was duly "im-shore the same evening. He went in purproved." Then the anchors weighed, and suit, and a pretty chase she led him: dashthe ships pursued their remorseless course ing between rocks on a level with the from the doomed man on the beach. They entered the South Seas on the last day of February, 1600, having spent nearly three months in the Straits. They had then 147 men, all told, left.

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water's edge, across dangerous sands, up deep inlets and round all sorts of awkward headlands, finally adopting the manœuvre that of all others the heavy Dutchmen most detested-hugging the wind. So

she led and so they followed through the favourable for attack until an overwhelmwhole of that night, while beacon after ing force could be concentrated against beacon flared up along the coast apprising them. The envoy, however, allowed the all whom it might concern that there were design to ooze out, and the plot failed. marauders abroad. Towards nine o'clock Van Noort instantly resumed hostilities. next morning the yacht managed to get At Valparaiso, in those days a paltry vilnear enough to exchange shots with the lage, he destroyed three ships and took chase, which allowed itself to be drawn possession of a fourth. In the last his into a fight. This gave time for the Mau- men encountered some slight resistance rice to come, and then the Spaniards sur- which they did not regret, since it gave rendered. The prize was called The Good them an excuse for destroying the greater Jesus, and proved to be a king's ship, portion of the crew, whose numbers might which had been employed to cruise along otherwise have proved inconvenient to the coast, in a great measure with the pur- feed and watch. None of the prizes conpose of being taken by the Dutch if she tained anything that could be turned to failed to involve them in destruction dur- the advantage of the owners of the squading the chase. For it appeared that the ron. The case was rather different with Creoles had been apprised of Van Noort's the captors, but how the latter fared will expedition early in the preceding year, be best explained by a short notice of the and were by this time fully prepared to marine usages of our ancestors in matters receive them. But this he did not learn of pillage. These usages were very preuntil a later period. One thing, however, cise, fixing beyond dispute the destination he did learn that interested him greatly of every article that could possibly change that there were then several Dutch hands in a sea-fight. The hull and cargo prisoners in Lima. These were the of the captured ships were to be turned poor remainder of the crews of two into money. A certain proportion of this, stout vessels which had touched some from a fifth to a twentieth, went to the months before at a port in southern Chili. There the Araucanians, mistaking them for Spaniards, surprised them and cut off the greater number of the mariners. The Indians, according to their custom, made flutes of the thigh-bones of their victims and drinking-cups of the skulls. The survivors, but nine in all, fell shortly after wards into the hands of the Spaniards, who treated them little if at all better. Van Noort left the coast before he could ascertain their fate. What that was, however, may be surmised from the method which Transatlantic Spaniards and Portuguese were then in the habit of adopting with heretical marauders. It is described with unction by Ovaglie Vasconcellas and the authors of the Life of Anchieta, all Jesuit writers, and was as follows: -The captives were shut up in a dismal prison and worried with monks until they declared themselves converted. Then, solely with a view to their eternal welfare they were hanged while the odour of sanctity was fresh upon them, and thus kept from forfeiting paradise by relapse into heresy.

With a view of procuring better treatmeat for his countrymen, Van Noort released most of his prisoners. The Spaniards, in return, displayed a specimen of the treachery which, by the close of Philip's reign, had become indurated in the nature of their public men. They sent the Dutch an ambassador, who was instructed to detain them in a situation

government. The remainder was then divided into three equal parts, one of which was assigned to the owner of the conquering ship, another to those who had equipped her, and the third to her officers and crew. Loose pillage, that is, the personal effects of the vanquished, fell to the victors, each officer having the privilege of rifling an officer of equal rank, while the common men became the prey of the first who happened to lay violent hands on them. Besides this, the choicest of the sails, spars, and arms were assigned to certain individuals. The captain, for instance, was to have the best piece of artillery and the gunner the second best; the finest cable was to belong to the pilot, and so on.

By the 5th of April the squadron was off Huasco. There, finding the Spaniards too strictly on their guard to give him any hope of further plunder, Van Noort determined to quit the American coast. So, detaining the Spanish pilot of The Good Jesus, two black slaves, and two Mulatto youths, he sent the rest of the prisoners away in the last prize, and sailed for Asia with three ships. Next morning old sea law was sharply vindicated. seaman was found guilty of pilfering a bottle of oil from the stores and a little bread from some of his comrades. Theft like this was a grave offence in the eyes of those "who went down to the sea in ships' three hundred years ago. Its usual pun

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and shot to death.

ishment was shaving the offender's head, for him. Worse still, in the strict examsmearing it with hot pitch, and sticking it ination to which the captors immediately over with feathers, after which the culprit subjected The Good Jesus and all her bewas marooned. This custom was departed longings, including the pilot himself, they from in the present instance, probably be- found exactly a pound of gold stowed cause the ships were entering on a voyage away in the lining of his nether garment. during which they were not likely to see From that hour the Hollanders regarded land for several months. A rope being themselves as deeply injured men, and the passed under the poor wretch's arms, he Spaniards as a nation of rascally cheats, was hauled up to the end of the foreyard, of whom the pilot was a fair and therefore thoroughly hateful specimen. The man, in short, was doomed. Four weeks after he was charged with asserting that the Dutch had attempted to poison him. It was added that he had sought to get up a conspiracy amongst his fellow-prisoners -a charge, considering the number of these prisoners, almost as absurd as the other. But ridiculous as the accusation was, it sufficed. The pilot was brought to trial thereon, convicted of course, and thrown into the sea with a couple of heavy shot tied to his legs.

Three other weeks passed eventless; but towards the end of the fourth the Dutch heard something that annoyed them for many a day. One of the black slaves averred that The Good Jesus had been employed to convey gold from the South to Lima, and that at the very time when the Maurice and the Concord hove in sight, there were no less than 11,000 lbs. weight of the precious metal on board, every ounce of which had been cast into the ocean by order of the captain. This story spread much wrathful excitement among the privateers, and in order to verify it, the rest of the captives were at once put to the torture. How this was done we are not informed, but it is not difficult to guess. Though racks were not unusual in the ships of that period, there were none in the Maurice or the Concord. But seaman are clever at expedients, and they had at least a score of substitutes for the mischievous engines with which confession was wont to be wrenched forth ashore. Conspicuous among these was the trick of suspending the victim face downwards by means of strong cords attached to his thums and great toes, and then placing a heavy weight on his back and a pot of burning brimstone under his nostrils. Tying a man to a spar and singeing his beard, or his cheek if he had no beard, with a slow match, was also much practised. And perhaps as effectual, in the long run, as either, was the barrel. Here the subject to be operated upon was placed in a cask, his arms being kept at full stretch through holes in the sides, his legs projected through similar holes in the bottom, and his head through another in the top. In this situation the poor fellow was retained until he thought fit to disclose his secrets. In the present instance the torture was neither long nor violent. The prisoners spoke immediately, and, to the chagrin of the Dutch, every one of them confirmed the story. The pilot added that he meant to have taken no small share in a certain plot for the destruction of the squadron, which has been mentioned. This bit of communication was unfortunate

In another month the helm of The Good Jesus broke from its fastenings, and as the bark had been leaking frequently for some time, this accident determined them to destroy her, which they did. At last, on the morning of the 15th of September, after a voyage of four months, they reached the Ladrones. There they procured a much needed supply, of provisions and water, and verified the character which preceding navigators had assigned to the islanders. Indeed their arrant knavery utterly amazed the honest Dutchmen. Resuming their course for the Philippines, they breasted Cape Espiritu Santo on the 14th of October. They cruised about the neighbouring seas for the next two months, finding the natives of the Philippines a gentle race, whom the Spaniards left pretty much to themselves-a few priests and tax-gatherers scantily distributed through their villages sufficing to keep them in order. For a week or two the Dutch, pretending to be Spaniards, did a profitable trade with them. Then the character of their visitors oozing out, the islanders avoided the ships, and nothing more was to be obtained except by force, which Van Noort was not slow to employ. He threw parties ashore in all quarters, shot down the natives when they resisted, and burnt and pillaged to any extent. And he did much the same on the ocean-stopping every sail he met, no matter what its nationality, and helping himself with small scruple to the cargo. Spanish bottoms he invariably destroyed; the others he generally dismissed, detaining, however, the pilots, if he suspected them to be skilful.

ment lavished on them had been thrown away, and that they were always disposed and ready to betray him," the indignant commander ordered this particular specimen of the race to be shot through the head with an arquebus. The sentence was duly executed; but not until the executioner had made the poor negro testify with his dying breath to the truth of the story concerning the gold which had been flung into the sea off the Peruvian coast.

This kind of cruising went on so profitably and agreeably that a council of war, which assembled towards the end of November, decided that they should await the change of season in the bay, where the Maurice then lay at anchor, some thirty miles to the west of Manilla. By this

In this kind of warfare he gained a few recruits, and lost several officers and men that he could ill spare. Five of the latter were murdered by the crew of a Chinese junk, with whose lading they had been taking liberties. But decidedly the comrade most regretted by the seamen of the Maurice was Master John Calloway, musician, of London. This worthy in character and career was quite a curiosity. Born under a hedge somewhere near Shepherd's Bush, he had been reared in Alsatia, where he had learned to play the violin, and to cut a caper, a purse, or a throat, with about equal dexterity. After a youth of fiddling, brawling, and stealing in the metropolis, he found his way to Holland, in one of those troops of volunteers of villanous character with which time their numbers had fallen to eighty, Great Britain has so long been in the habit of accommodating her neighbours. After due experience of the wars-running the gauntlet half-a-dozen times, and escaping the gallows twice, — on one occasion by throwing dice for his life with a fellow-reprobate and winning the cast, and on another by turning hangman himself: he had finally taken service with Van Noort, in a fit of despair caused by the obduracy of a Dutch widow, whose exuberant beauties he had contrived to fall in love with. Afloat he was always getting into scrapes; and always getting out of them, for his fiddle was indispensable. This respectable artist purloined a brandyflask from one of his comrades during a foray ashore, got drunk, lagged behind, and was never heard of afterwards by his comrades, who could have better spared a very much better man.

of whom twenty-five were on board the yacht. But expecting no more formidable opposition than they had hitherto encountered, they considered themselves quite strong enough for any exertion that was likely to be demanded of them. The Maurice could make little way against the brisk north-west wind, so she lowered her topmasts and remained at her moorings, while the Concord, a handy Ittle craft, kept prowling about, making numerous prizes, all of which she brought to the anchorage. On the 9th of December she carried one thither, whose cargo, consisting of an ardent spirit distilled from a species of cocoa-nut, was peculiarly acceptible. There was no lack of other good things either, nor of dusky beauties from the neighbouring islands to share. So time sped delightfully with the rovers until Tuesday the 14th of December. Here, too, they saw the last of the ne- Early that morning two vessels appeared groes whom they had pressed from The in the offing. But the Concord had sailed Good Jesus. One of the pair managed to overnight on a cruise, and, therefore, they escape during a dark night, "contrary to excited no suspicion at first. As they the promises which he had made to remain drew nearer, however, it was clear that in the Dutch service." Suspecting that they were large and heavily armed ships, this was a portion of a plot, the general and that they were bearing down under a commanded the other negro to be "ex- press of canvas for the Maurice. amined." The man refusing to reply, his Dutch were surprised; but there was judicious examiners stripped him naked, nothing very amazing in the occurrence. and tied him in the rigging with his face Manilla was a great commercial port, and to the sun, and his arms and legs extended they had been making havoc of its trade in the shape of the letter X, which was for the last six weeks. Their ravages, the approved form of spread-eagling. A indeed, had become intolerable, and the couple of hours in this position rendering Spaniards had determined to destroy them, him sufficiently tractable, he was taken cost what it might. Seeing the character down. He then confessed that, not only of the approaching ships, the crew of the had he been privy to his comrade's design, Maurice hurried their visitors, male and but that he would certainly have accom- female, into their boats, beat to quarters panied him had he considered the oppor- and prepared for action-running up their tunity a safe one. Seeing the ingrati- topmnasts in the first instance, and serving tude of these Moors, that all the good treat-'every man on board with a liberal meas

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