the crye went, kill the prisoners, where upon some were miserably hacked; but Sevagee hauing quitted himselfe, and hee that stood by hauing clouen the fellows scull, comand was given to stay the execution, and to bring the prisoners before him, wich was imediately done, and Sevagee according as it came in his minde caused them to cut of this mans head, that mans right hand, both the hands of a third. It comes to Mr. Smith turne, and his right hand being comanded to bee cutt of, hee cryed out in Indostan to Sevagee, rather to cutt of his head, vnto wich end his hatt was taken of, but Sevagee stopt execution and soe praised be God hee escaped.

There were than about four heads and 24 hands cutt of after that Mr. Smith was come away, and retayned by the president, and they heard the answer hee sends the embassador of Ethiopea, whome hee had sett free upon delivery of 12 horses and some other things, sent by his king to Oron Zeb, to tell the English that hee did intend to visitt vs, and to raise the house and kill every man of vs.

The president resolutly answers that we were redy for him and resolued not to stire, but let him come when hee pleased, and since hee had as hee saide resolued to come, hee bid him come one pore, that is about the tyme of a watch, sooner than hee intended. With this answer the ambassador went his way, and wee heard no farther from him any more but in the terrible noise of the fier and the hideous smoke wich wee saw, but by Gods mercy came not soe neere vs as to take hold of vs, ever blessed be his name. Thursday and Friday nights were the most terrible nights for fier: on Friday after hee had ransaked and dug vp Vege Voras house, hee fiered it and a great vast number more towards the Dutch house, a fier soe great as turnd the night into day; as before the smoke in the day tyme had almost turnd day into night; rising soe thicke as it darkened the sun like a great cloud. On Sunday morning about 10 a clocke as thay tell vs hee went his way. And that night lay six courss of, and next day at noone was passed over Brooch river, there is a credable information that he hath shipt his treasure to carry into his own country, and Sr George Oxenden hath sent a fregate to see if hee can light of them, wich God grant. We kept our watch still till Tuesday.

I had forgote to writte you the manner of their cutting of mens hands, which was thuss; the person to suffer is pinioned as streight as possibly they can, and then when the nod is giuen, a soldier come with a whitle or blunt knife and throws the poore patient downe vpon his face, than draws his hand backwards and setts his knee upon the prisoners backe, and begins to hacke and cutt on one side and other about the wrest, in the meane tyme the poore man roareth exceedingly, kicking and bitting the

ground for very anguish, when the villiane perceiues the bone to bee laid bare on all sides, hee setteth the wrest to his knee and giues it a snap and proceeds till he hath hacked the hand quite of, which done thay force him to rise, and make him run soe long till through paine and loss of blood he falls downe, they then vnpinion him and the blood stops.

Dr. E. Browne to his Father.-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 everything, 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 Patago nian 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 thrown 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 seeing 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, there 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 Tierre 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 than 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 provisions, 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, and when they came to the English, sometimes in sight of them, rather then want that ornament they woulde daube up one eye or one side of their face with clay or dirt. The whole country on this side from the river of Plate to Cape Plenty in the streights, or thereabouts, is one great plaine, the same with Pampas, where no trees growe, and the captain compared it to New Market heath. The other side it is all hilly, and the rivers runne downe so impetuously into the South sea, that they may see them runne a long way into the ocean, and have fresh water out of great rivers at the sea side. Beyond the streights 2 μ

VOL. III.

they sailed up to Castro, an island where the Spaniards live, there being none of them now upon all the coast of America, between that place and the river of Plate; from Castro they went to Baldavia, but I have not room to write what_passed there. Your m. o. son, E. B.

:

Sir Thomas Browne to Mr. Elias Ashmole.

I was very well acquainted with Dr. Arthur Dee, and at one time or other hee hath given me some account of the whole course of his life hee gave mee a catalogue of what his father Dr. John Dee had writt, and what hee intended to write, butt I think I have seen the same in some of his printed bookes, and that catalogue hee gave me in writing I cannot yet find. I never heard him say one word of the booke of spirits, sett out by Dr. Casaubone, which if hee had knowne I make no doubt butt hee would have spoake of it unto mee, for he was very inquisitive after any manuscripts of his father's, and desirous to print as many as hee could possibly obtaine; and therefore, understanding that Sir William Boswell, the English resident in Holland, had found out many of them, which he kept in a trunck in his howse in Holland, to my knowledge hee sent divers letters unto Sir William, humbly desiring him that hee would not lock them up from the world, butt suffer him to print at least some thereof. Sir William answered some of his letters, acknowledging that hee had some of his father's works not yet published, and that they were safe from being lost, and that hee was readie to showe them unto him, butt that hee had an intention to print some of them himself. Dr. Arthur Dee continued his solicitation, butt Sr. William dying I could never heare more of those manuscripts in his hand. I have heard the Dr. saye that hee lived in Bohemia with his father, both at Prague and other parts of Bohemia. That Prince or Count Rosenberg was their great patron, who delighted much in alchymie; I have often heard him affirme, and sometimes with oaths, that hee had seen projection made and transmutation of pewter dishes and flaggons into sylver, which the goldsmiths at Prague bought of them. And that Count Rosenberg playd at quaits with silver quaits made by projection as before; that this transmutation was made by a powder they had, which was found in some old place, and a booke lying by it containing nothing butt hieroglyphicks, which booke his father bestowed much time upon; but I could not heare that he could make it out. Hee sayd also that Kelly delt not justly by his father, and that he went away with the greatest part of the powder and was afterwards imprisoned by the Emperor in a castle, from whence attempting an escape downe the wall, hee