As the greatest pain I feel in committing the following sheets to the press, arises from an apprehension that many of my readers will accuse me of egotism; I will not incur that charge in my preface, by detaining them with the reasons which have induced me, at this time, to yield to the desire of my friends. It is equally indifferent to the public to be told how it happened, that nothing should have got the better of my indolence and reluctance to comply with the same requests, for the space of twenty years.

I will employ these few introductory pages merely to shew what pretensions this work may have to the notice of the world, after those publications which have preceded it.

It is well known that the Wager, one of Lord Anson’s squadron, was cast away upon a desolate island in the South Seas. The subject of this book is a relation of the extraordinary difficulties and hardships through which, by the assistance of divine providence, a small part of her crew escaped to their native land; and a very small proportion of those made their way in a new and unheard of manner, over a large and desert tract of land between the western mouth of the Magellanic streight, and the capital of Chili; a country scarce to be paralleled in any part of the globe, in that it affords neither fruits, grain, nor even roots proper for the sustenance of man; and what is still more rare, the very sea, which yields a plentiful support to many a barren coast, on this tempestuous and inhospitable shore is found to be almost as barren as the land; and it must be confessed, that, to those who cannot interest themselves with seeing human nature labouring, from day to day, to preserve its existence under the continual want of such real necessaries as food and shelter from the most rigorous climate, the following sheets will afford but little entertainment.

Yet, after all, it must be allowed there can be no other way of ascertaining the geography and natural history of a country which is altogether morass and rock, incapable of products or culture, than by setting down every minute circumstance which was observed in traversing it. The same may be said of the inhabitants, their manners, religion, and language.