excellent frelh water, which fall into the harbour; fome o f them
fo; luckily (floated, that the calks may be filled in the long-boat
with an hofe: the moft remarkable of thefe. is the ftream drawn in
the N. E. part of the Port. This is a frelh-water river, where the
Pink's people got fome few mullets of an excellent flavour; and
thev were perfuaded, that, in a proper feafon (it being winter when
thev were there), it abounded with filh. The principal refrelh-
ments they, met with in this Port were greens, as wild celery, net-
tletops, &c. (which, after fo long a continuance at fea, they devoured
with great eagernefs) ; (hell filh, as cockles and mulcles of an
extraordinary fize, and extremely delicious; and good ftore of geete,
(hags, and penguins. The climate, though it was the depth o f winter,
was not remarkably rigorous; nor the trees, and the faceof the
country, deftitute o f verdure ; whence, in the fummer, many other
fpecies of frelh provifion, belides thefe here enumerated, might
doubtlefs be found there. Notwithftanding the tales of the Spanijh
hiftorians, in relation to the violence and barbarity of the inhabitants,
it doth not appear that their numbers are fuificient to give
the leaft jealoufy to any fhip o f ordinary force, or that their difpo-
fition is by any means fo mifchievous or mercilefs as hath hitherto
been reprefented. With all thefe advantages, this place is lb fer
removed from the Spanijh frontier, and lo little known to the Spaniards
themfelves, that there is reafon to fuppofe that, by proper
precautions, a (hip might continue here undifcovered a long time.
It is, moreover, a poll o f great defence ; for, by pofltffing the Ifland
that clofes up the harbour, and which is acceflible in very few
places, a fmall force might fecure this Port again ft all the ftrength
the Spaniards could mufter in that part o f the world ; fince this
Ifland, towards the harbour, is fteep too, and has fix fathom water
clofe to the Ihore, fo that the Pink anchored within forty yards o f
i t : whence it is obvious how impoffible it would prove, either to
board or cut out any yeflel protefted by a force pofted (hore,
within piftol-lhot, and where thofe who were thus pofted could
not themfelves be attacked. All thefe circumftances feem to
render