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1592.]
DAVIS IN MAGELLAN'S STRAIT.
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no details of Chudleigh's voyage. The young leader appears to have visited Trinidad. He died in the Strait of Magellan, and his ship returned. But the Delight had on board Mr. Magroth, who wrote the story of her passage out and home. She reached the Strait of Magellan, where sickness, want of resources, and other misfortunes led to a resolution to return without succeeding in the objects of the voyage. The sole survivor of the miserable colonists who had been abandoned to their fate by Cavendish was found at Port Famine and taken on board the Delight, but he died on the passage to Europe. The ship was wrecked on the coast of France, and only a few survivors found their way home again, including Mr. Magroth, the historian of the voyage.

Cavendish also fitted out a second expedition, which he mismanaged and which was a total failure. He himself reached the Strait of Magellan, shaped a course homeward, and died on the passage. Another ship deserted and returned.

The interest of this expedition lies in the fact that John Davis, the great Arctic navigator, commanded one of the ships, with the idea of attempting to make the voyage intended by Drake, from the coast of New Albion, round North America, to the Atlantic. Davis, on board the Desire, sailed from England in August, 1591. The ship was ill-found, both as regards stores and provisions, and when Davis reached Port Desire, on the coast of Patagonia, he strove to make good some of the defects. His crew fished for smelts with crooked pins, and caught many seals, which enabled him to salt down twenty hogsheads of seal flesh. He again put to sea with the intention of passing through Magellan's Strait, and on the 14th of August, 1592, he discovered the group now called the Falkland Islands. He then passed through the Strait, but on entering the South Sea he was driven back by gale after gale of wind. In one furious squall the cable of the Desire parted and an anchor was lost. Davis now only had one anchor with one of the flukes gone, and a cable spliced in two places. Still the dauntless seaman resolved to make another attempt. But again he was met, on passing Cape Pilar, by a furious storm, with hail and snow, and with such a sea running that the people expected every moment to be their last.

At length, worn out with fatigue and the desperate struggle against the elements, even Davis began to despond. The sails were nearly worn out. The foot-rope of the foresail had parted, so that nothing held it but the cringles or eyelet-holes in the clews. The