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 not aided us in giving us good weather to refresh ourselves with provisions and other things, we should all have died of hunger in this very vast sea, and I think that never man will undertake to perform such a voyage.

When we had gone out of this strait, if we had always navigated to the west we should have gone without finding any land except the Cape of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, which is the eastern head of the strait in the ocean sea, with the Cape of Desire at the west in the Pacific sea. These two capes are exactly in fifty-two degrees of latitude of the antarctic pole.

The antarctic pole is not so covered with stars as the arctic, for there are to be seen there many small stars congregated together, which are like to two clouds a little separated from one another, and a little dimmed, in the midst of which are two stars, not very large, nor very brilliant, and they move but little: these two stars are the antarctic pole. Our compass needle still pointed a little to its arctic pole; nevertheless it had not as much power as on its own side and region. Yet when we were in the open sea, the captain-general asked of all the pilots, whilst still