and flows every twelve hours. Indeed the ebb is so rapid, that we found by our log-line it continued to run five or six knots an hour; and in ten minutes after the ebb is past, the flood returns with equal velocity; besides, the wind generally blows during the whole night out of the harbour."]

On the 25th, I went a good way up the harbour in the boat, and having landed on the north side, we soon after found an old oar of a very singular make, and the barrel of a musket, with the king's broad arrow upon it. The musket-barrel had suffered so much from the weather, that it might be crumbled to dust between the fingers: I imagined it had been left there by the Wager's people, or perhaps by Sir John Narborough. Hitherto we had found no kind of vegetables except a species of wild peas; but though we had seen no inhabitants, we saw places where they had made their fires, which however did not appear to be recent. While we were on shore we shot some wild ducks and a hare; the hare ran two miles after he was wounded, though it appeared when he was taken up that a ball had passed quite through his body. I went this day many miles up the country, and had a long chace after one of the guanicoes, which was the largest we had seen: He frequently stopped to look at us, when he had left us at a good distance behind, and made a noise that resembled the neighing of a horse; but when we came pretty near him he set out again, and at last, my dog being so tired that he could not run him any longer, he got quite away from us, and we saw him no more. We shot a hare however, and a little ugly animal which stunk so intolerably that none of us could go near him. The flesh of the hares here is as white as snow, and nothing can be better tasted. A serjeant of marines, and some others who were on shore at another part of the bay, had better success than fell to our share, for they killed two old guanicoes and a fawn; they were however obliged to leave them where they fell, not being able to bring them down to the water side, near six miles, without farther assistance, though they were but half the weight of those that are mentioned by Sir John Narborough; some however I saw, which could not weigh less than seven or eight and thirty stone, which is about three hundred pounds. When we returned in the evening it blew very hard, and the deck being so full of lumber that we could not hoist the boats in, we moored them astern. About midnight, the storm continuing, our six-oared cutter filled with water and broke adrift; the boat-keeper, by whose neglect this accident happened, being on board her, very narrowly escaped drowning by catching hold of the stern ladder. As it was tide of flood when she went from the ship, we knew that she must drive up the harbour; yet as the loss of her would be an irremediable misfortune, I suffered much anxiety till I could send after her in the morning, and it was then some hours before she was brought back, having driven many miles with the stream. In the mean time, I sent another party to fetch the guanicoes which our people had shot the night before; but they found nothing left except the bones, the tygers having eaten the flesh, and even cracked the bones of the limbs to come at the marrow. Several of our people had been fifteen miles up the country in search of fresh water, but could not find the least rill: We had sunk several wells to a considerable depth where the ground appeared moist, but upon visiting them, I had the mortification to find that, altogether, they would not yield more than thirty gallons in twenty-four hours: This was a discouraging circumstance, especially as our people, among other expedients, had watched the guanicoes, and seen them drink at the salt ponds. I therefore determined to leave the place as soon as the ship could be got into a little order, and the six-oared cutter repaired, which had been hauled up upon the beach for that purpose.

On the 27th, some of our people, who had been ashore on the north side of the bay to try for more guanicoes, found the skull and bones of a man, which they brought off with them, and one young guanicoe alive, which we all agreed was one of the most beautiful creatures we had ever seen: It soon grew very tame, and would suck our fingers like a calf; but, notwithstanding all our care and contrivances to feed it, it died in a few days. In the afternoon of this day it blew so hard that I was obliged to keep a considerable number of hands continually by the sheet-anchor, as there was too much reason to fear that our cables would part, which however did not happen. In the mean time, some of our people that were on shore with the carpenters, who were repairing the cutter on the south side of the bay, found two more springs of tolerable water about two miles from the beach, in a direct line from the ship's station. To these springs I sent twenty hands early in the morning with some small casks, called barecas, and in a few turns they brought on board a tun of water, of which we began to be in great want. In the mean time, I went myself about twelve miles up the river in my boat, and the weather then growing bad, I went on shore: The river, as far as I could see, was very broad; there were in it a number of islands, some of which were very large, and I make no doubt but that it penetrates the country for some hundreds of miles. It was upon one of the islands that I went on shore, and I found there such a number of birds, that when they rose they literally darkened the sky, and we could not walk a step without treading upon their eggs. As they kept hovering over our heads at a little distance, the men knocked down many of them with stones and sticks, and carried off several hundreds of their eggs. After some time I left the island and landed upon the main, where our men dressed and eat their eggs, though there were young birds in most of them. I saw no traces of inhabitants on either side of the river, but great numbers of guanicoes, in herds of sixty or seventy together: They would not however suffer us to approach them, but stood and gazed at us from the hills, in this excursion the surgeon, who was of my party, shot a tyger cat, a small but very fierce animal; for, though it was much wounded, it maintained a very sharp contest with my dog for a considerable time before it was killed.[14]

[Footnote 14: "On the south shore the rocks are not so numerous as on the north side; and there are more hills and deep vallies; but they are covered only by high grass and a few small shrubs. Hence this is but a bad place to touch at, by any ship that is under the necessity of wooding and watering. Our commodore, in order to clear the ground of the overgrown grass, which grew in some places in great quantities, and also to improve the soil, which appeared to be of a barren sandy nature, gave orders for the grass to be set on fire in different places, which was no sooner done, than the flames ran so fast, that in less than half an hour they spread several miles round."]

On the 29th, we completed our ballast, which the strength of the tide, and the constant gales of wind, rendered a very difficult and laborious task; we also got on board another tun of water. On the morning of the 30th, the weather was so bad that we could not send a boat on shore; but employed all hands on board in setting up the rigging. It grew more moderate however about noon, and I then sent a boat to procure more water. The two men who first came up to the well found there a large tyger lying upon the ground; having gazed at each other some time, the men, who had no fire-arms, seeing the beast treat them with as much contemptuous neglect as the lion did the knight of La Mancha, begun to throw stones at him: Of this insult, however, he did not deign to take the least notice, but continued stretched upon the ground in great tranquillity till the rest of the party came up, and then he very leisurely rose and walked away.

On the first of December, our cutter being thoroughly repaired, we took her on board, but the weather was so bad that we could not