ABSTRACT
PEDRO SARMIENTO DE GAMBÓA was one of the most eminent Spanish scientific navigators of the sixteenth century. His admirable work up the Gulf of Trinidad and in the Straits of Magellan is well known to English naval surveyors ; but his reports have never been translated. The present volume contains translations of his narrative which was published at the end of the last century, and of his important reports which first saw the light in i860. 1 Some account of the surveys of Sarmiento and of his unfortunate attempt to establish a colony in the Straits of Magellan is given in Burney’s Voyages 2 But the Admiral’s authorities were confined to the published narratives, to Argensola, and to the story of Lopez Vaz in Hakluyt. He was unacquainted with the reports of Sarmiento himself, which have recently been brought to light.
