Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
in the icy seas were clearly heard by comrades helpless to render
any assistance.
At last there came a lull in the storm. The two ships clawed their
way north-westward and found what appeared to be a safe anchor-
age in a cove to the north of Cape Pilar. But within hours an off-
shore wind beat down with such ferocity that anchor cables par-
ted and the exhausted mariners had to put to sea once more. This
time the
Golden Hind
and the
Elizabeth
were separated. The flagship
was driven far to the south-east before the wind abated. Drake found
himself in 57° near a cluster of islands to which he gave the name
'Elizabethides'. In fact, he had discovered, without realising it, the
southernmost point of the American continent. Later generations of
sailors would know it as Cape Horn.
It was 7 November by the time the
Golden Hind
regained the
western end of the straits and there was no sign of her sister ship. In
fact this was because the
Elizabeth
was by now well on her way back
through the channel. Captain John Wynter and his men had had their
bellyful of Francis Drake's perilous mystery tour. The sailing master
probably spoke for all when he declared that 'Mr Drake hired him for
Alexandria, but if he had known that this had been the Alexandria,
he would have been hanged in England rather than have come in this
Meanwhile, Drake settled to the main purpose of his voyage: do-
ing as much damage as possible to and extracting as much plunder
as possible from the ill-protected nerve centre of Spain's commer-
cial empire. With one small ship and his storm-and-disease-depleted
crew (the complement was now down to about eighty), this man the
Spaniards called
El Draco,
the Dragon, spread havoc and confusion
along the entire seaboard. Merchant captains at anchor and citizens
about their lawful occasions on the quayside were stunned by the
wholly unprecedented vision of an enemy ship coming into harbour
with cannons blazing. At several 'ports of call' the Englishmen were
