The Scurvy of Cape Horn

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The wager and the other ships kept heading south along the coast of South America. Once they went ashore to fix a broken mast and saw armadillos, the sailors called them hogs and armor. And once, a sailor on board the wager wrote that they nearly hid a whale. Eventually, it was time for the ships to turn west and enter the waters around Cape Horn.

There’s an old sailors’ saying about the ocean at the southernmost part of the world — “below 40 degrees latitude, there is no law; below 50 degrees, there is no God.”

David Grann brings us the story of what happened when five British warships set off on a secret mission to steal a ship filled with treasure. They’d have to sail around the very bottom of South America — at 56 degrees south.

David Grann’s book is The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder.

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Artwork by Julienne Alexander.

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