and cristalls. 14. A fine piece of cristall and silver ore. 15 A Schroeck stone, or a blue amulet against frights. 16. Mony coyned at Chremnitz. 17. Mony coloured at the bathes of Banca. 18. Three ringes made of elkes clawes. 19. The haire of a boy like woole. 20. Copper ore from Herrngrundt. These following I have sent directed to Mr. Coldham to Venice, to Mr. Hobson or the Consull. Two bags of golde ore, A bag with the materialls in the meltinge of copper; as fluss stein, slach, rost, also a piece of khis; a bag of severall sorts of silver ore; a box of vitriole: a box with the materialls of the sweating bath at Glasshitten, which are much commended against the stone and gravell; A paper of copper ore; a box of the sediment of the baths at Mannersdorff; a box of antimony of gold from Chremnitz; A box of not ordinary silver ore, with other mixtures of metalls, from Schemnitz; glasse-schlachen: a faire peece of the amethyst rocke; a box full of the materialls of the bath at Baden; a peece of rich black copper ore; a little bundell from Freistat; the petrified stone in the baths of Eisenbach; antimony ore bought at Vienna; iron changed into aurichalcum or copper, with some gold. To these Mr. Donellan tells me he added some things from Bleyberg, and lapis Calaminaris. The great heat hindered me going out of the way to see Aquilegia, and, in my returne, to visit the saltworkes at Halstat. I am much comforted to receive four letters from you, Sir, since my returne hither; and I am in some hopes of another to morrow, I thinke not to stay here above a fortnight. My duty to my most dear mother, and love to my sisters, Your most obedient sonne, Though my foot bee very paynfull, and disableth mee from going, yet my head is free, and, I thank God, I am VOL. I. 2 G not sick; and therefore I take it as a merciful memento from God, and am not without hope to find ease in no long time: though, as years grow upon mee, I cannot butt expect more frequent returns of these or worse infirmities. God send you all your healths. I rest your loving father, DEAR SONNE, T. BROWNE. December 1, [1670.] I wish you att home this very could wethar, espeshally this daye. Your fathar haveing layd out the last night, have gott som could, and it is fallne into his foutt, and is very painefull to him. Hee has complained of his head a good while, and I sopos it is now fallne into his foutt. I besich God send him ease. It is yett but sickly here, and hee has not much rest. I wish you here to helpe him. I am just helping him to bad, and can say no more, but thatt I am, Your affectinat morthar, D. B. I hope I shall heare from you sudinly, and whethar you did receve the box, and whether there be any thing don in your sister Fairfax's bisnes, and how they dooe, for I have not had a lattar a good while from her. I hop you see Franke. This for Dr. Browne, att his Lodging at the Harp and Dr. E. Browne to his Father. [RAWL. LVIII, 38-40.] September 7, 1671. MOST HONOURED FATHER, Sir, I have formerly sent you word of Captain Narborough's voyage in the Sweepstakes to Baldavia in the South Sea; and having since been in his company, and seen Mr. Thomas Wood's mappes of the Southern parts of America, and of Tierra del fuego, and enquired after many things in their voyage, I will set downe as much as I can in this sheet of paper, least that you should not meete with any other account; seing divers of those who understande most of the voyage are seeking out further employe, and Mr. Woode who giveth me the greatest satisfaction in every thing, thinks still upon greater actions, and hath already offered his service to the East India Company to goe for Japan. The Sweepstakes was long upon the Atlantick ocean, before they made the coast of America, almost five moneths; the Pinke, which went with them, being but a slow sayler. The day before they saw lande, they left the Pinke, with order for her to stay at such and such places, and afterwards to come in to the streights of Magellan, and there remain till they met; but the Pinke, being once out of sight, shifted her course, and with eighteen men in her, bore away for Barbados, and so into England, reporting the Sweepstakes to be lost. The rest continued their voyage, and the next day, discovering America belowe the river of Plate, they hasted away to Port Desire, and there put in. At the mouth of this port is one of the best sea markes in the world- -a vast rock in the shape of a tower. They went up here to Le Maire's Islande, and found a leaden boxe, with an account of his voyage so farre in it. They went also to Drake's Islande, where Sr Francis Drake executed one of his officers, and went up and downe the country, but saw no inhabitants, although they were sensible that the country was not without people; for they had divers things stolen from them, and at their return thither, they founde a modell of their owne shippe, of the bignesse of an ordinary boate, built by the Indians out of peeces of boards and broken oares which the English had left there. Mr. Woode founde two mussell shells here tyed together with peeces of guts and divers peeces and kernels of gold in them, some of which I have seen, they lost or left upon the sande I suppose by some American. At their coming hither they saw divers graves, and some of them very long, which they tooke at first to be the sepulchres of the Patagonian gyants, written of by Magellan and others, and pictured in mappes with arrowes thrust downe their throates; but, opening their tombes, which are heapes of stones throwne over them, they founde none to exceed our stature, and the people which they saw all along that coast are rather lowe; and Captain Narborough affirmes, that he never sawe an American in the Southern parts so high as himself. They opened many tombes, as they say, out of curiosity; I know not whether they might not also have hopes of finding treasure buried with them, for certainly there is much gold in some of those countryes, and the Indians in other places seing a gold ring on the captain's finger, would pointe to the hills and to the ring, intimating from whence that metal came; but as to the tombes they at last discovered the reason of their great length, and founde that it was their way to bury one at the foot of another, the head of one touching the feet of the other, perhaps man and wife, for they have brought home a man and a woman's skull taken out of one grave laiing in that posture, so that they have hereby discovered that the race of the gyants are much diminished in their stature. From Port Desire they sayled to Port Julian, another faire port; they stayed also here sometime; but this of all things which they relate, seemeth most strange, that, going up the country, they discovered a lake of salt, or rather a field of granulated salt of some miles over; some of which they separated from the rest near the border. At their return thither three days after, their was no salt at all left, except what they had separated at some distance from the other, neither had it rained from the time they first sawe it to the time they cam thither again and found none; the salt had been above the earth about a foot deepe, and Mr. Woode pacing and examining the grounde whereon it had layne, founde a deep hole or well in the middle. I can imagine no other way to solve this, then by comparing it to the Lake of Zirknitz, where the water springs out from under the grounde and retires againe, or rather like to a tide's well, which often ebbes and flowes, and so might springe out of the grounde, dissolve the salt, and carry it with itselfe into the earth again by large passages. The quantity of salt was great which afterwards disappeared; for to use their own expression, there was more salt than would serve all the shippes in the world. From hence they sayled to the streights of Magellan, where they spent five or six weekes giving names to the islandes, capes, inlets, bayes, harbours, and remarkable places, most of their acquaintance sharing in their discovery, and the Duke of Yorke's servants names are given to many places; amongst whome Mr. Henry Savill, whom I formerly travelled with in Italy, gives his name to the southermost part which they saw off Tierra del Fuego. At the coming into the streights, they pass a double narrow, and afterwards it is larger and full of islands. The country is mountainous on each side and the hills covered with snowe all the year long; so that they sayle as in a deepe vally. The sea in the middle is so deepe as they could finde no bottome-six hundred fathomes would doe nothing; but near the shoars they found anchorage, which they exactly marked. There are many rivers and inlets into these streights, but they wanted their Pinke much to discover more, and they thinke Tierra del Fuego to be many islandes. They saw many fires there; from hence it had its name. They are not the flames of burning mountaines, but the inhabitants make fires, and also burne the grass and weeds, as in Hungary, where I have seen the country on fire for a great way together. Most of these islandes are full of seales of a larger size then oures, many of which they killed, no otherwise than by knocking them on the head, and salted them up. They tooke also a great number of penguins, which served the seamen in the voyage. About the middle of the streights they touched at a place on the north shoare, called Port Famine, where there was formerly a plantation of Spaniards, but they were starved to death. Near to this place, further on, they discovered a country full of provision, and have therefore named it Cape Plenty. The inhabitants of the streights goe all naked, men, women, and children: some few onely wearing a circle of net about their heades, like our shoemakers, although the country be cold in 53 and 54 degrees of southern latitude. Their colour is much the same with the other Americans, and differs little from them that live under the line; they goe all with bowes and arrowes, and many of them conversed freely with the English, came on boarde, and went a shoare, eat and dranke with them, without taking any great notice of any thinge. They would eat the meat and anoint themselves all over with the fat and grease; they painte themselves rudely, |