Japan and the Japanese

FIRST DUTCH. VOYAG-E TO THE PACIFIC. 135
then just setting in, during which they lost more than a hundred
men by cold and hunger, antl were thus detained though, accord--
ing to Adams, there were many times when they might have gone
till
through
the 24th of September, when at last they entered the
South Sea.
A few days after, they encountered a violent storm, by which the
ships were separated. Capt. Wert, with the Faith and Fidelity, was
driven back into the straits, where he fell in with Oliver Noort, who
had left Holland a few days after the Verhagen fleet, had followed
in the same track, had encountered many of the same difficulties, but
who, more fortunate, not only passed the strait, but succeeded in com-
pleting the fourth circumnavigation of the globe,
a feat accomplished
before his voyage only by the ships of Magellan, Drake and
Cavendish. As Noort was unable to afford him any aid, Wert aban-
doned the enterprise, and returned with his two ships to Holland.
The other three ships steered separately for the coast of Chili,
where a rendezvous, in the latitude of forty-six degrees, had been
appointed. The Charity, in which Adams was, on reaching the
place of rendezvous, found some Indian inhabitants, who at first
furnished sheep in exchange for bells and knives, with which they
seemed well satisfied, but who shortly after disappeared, probably
through Spanish influence. Having waited twenty-eight days, and
hearing nothing of her consorts, the Charity ran by Valdivia to
the island of Mocha, and thence toward the neighboring island of
Santa Maria. Seeing on the main land near by a number of peo-
ple, boats were sent for a parley ; but the people would suffer
none to land from the boats, at which they shot a multitude of
arrows.
" "
Nevertheless," says Adams, having no victuals in our
ship, and hoping to find refreshing, we forcibly landed some sevenand-twenty
or thirty of our men, and drove the wild people from
the water-side, having the most of our men hurt with their arrows.
Having landed, we made signs of friendship, and in the end came
to parley, with signs that our desire was to have victuals for iron,
silver and cloth, which we showed them. Whereupon they gave
our folks wine, with batatas (sweet potatoes), and other fruits, and
bade them, by signs and tokens, to go aboard, and the next day to
oome again, and they would bring us victuals."
The next day, after a council, in which it was resolved not tr