tended, to die almost without a battle in defence of their natural rights, and ancient possessions.

Such treatment had the natives of St. Jago received, which had driven them into the rocky parts of the island, from whence they made incursions into the plantations of the Portuguese, sometimes with loss, but generally with that success which desperation naturally procures; so that the Portuguese were in continual alarms, and lived with the natural consequences of guilt, terror, and anxiety. They were wealthy, but not happy, and possessed the island, but not enjoyed it.

They then sailed on within sight of Fogo, an island so called from a mountain, about the middle of it, continually burning, and, like the rest, inhabited by the Portuguese, two leagues to the south of which lies Brava, which has received its name from its fertility, abounding, though uninhabited, with all kinds of fruits, and watered with great numbers of springs and brooks, which would easily invite the possessors of the adjacent islands to settle in it, but that it affords neither harbour nor anchorage. Drake, after having sent out his boats with plummets, was not able to find any ground about it; and it is reported, that many experiments have been made with the same success; however, he took in water sufficient, and on the 2d of February set sail for the Straits of Magellan.

On February 17, they passed the equator, and continued their voyage, with sometimes calms, and sometimes contrary winds, but without any memorable accident, to March 28, when one of their vessels, with twenty-eight men, and the greatest part of their fresh water on board, was,

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to their great discouragement, separated from them; but their perplexity lasted not long, for on the next day they discovered and rejoined their associates.

In their long course, which gave them opportunities of observing several animals, both in the air and water, at that time very little known, nothing entertained or surprised them more than the Flying Fish, which is near of the same size with a herring, and has fins of the length of his whole body, by the help of which, when he is pursued by the bonito, or great mackarel, as soon as he finds himself upon the point of being taken, he springs up into the air, and flies forward as long as his wings continue wet, moisture being, as it seems, necessary to make them pliant and moveable; and when they become dry and stiff, he falls down into the water, unless some bark or ship intercept him, and dips them again for a second flight. This unhappy animal is not only pursued by fishes in his natural element, but attacked in the air, where he hopes for security, by the don, or sparkite, a great bird that preys upon fish; and their species must surely be destroyed, were not their increase so great, that the young fry, in one part of the year, covers the sea.

There is another fish, named the cuttil, of which whole shoals will sometimes rise at once out of the water, and of which a great multitude fell into their ship.

At length, having sailed without sight of land for sixty-three days, they arrived, April 5, at the coast of Brasil, where, on the 7th, the Christopher was separated again from them by a storm; after which they sailed near the land to the southward,

and on the 14th anchored under a cape, which they afterwards called Cape Joy, because in two days the vessel which they had lost returned to them.

Having spent a fortnight in the river of Plata, to refresh his men, after their long voyage, and then standing out to sea, he was again surprised by a sudden storm, in which they lost sight of the Swan. This accident determined Drake to contract the number of his fleet, that he might not only avoid the inconvenience of such frequent separations, but ease the labour of his men, by having more hands in each vessel.

For this purpose he sailed along the coast in quest of a commodious harbour, and, on May 13, discovered a bay, which seemed not improper for their purpose, but which they durst not enter till it was examined; an employment in which Drake never trusted any, whatever might be his confidence in his followers on other occasions. He well knew how fatal one moment's inattention might be, and how easily almost every man suffers himself to be surprised by indolence and security. He knew the same credulity, that might prevail upon him to trust another, might induce another to commit the same office to a third; and it must be, at length, that some of them would be deceived. He therefore, as at other times, ordered the boat to be hoisted out, and, taking the line into his hand, went on sounding the passage till he was three leagues from his ship; when, on a sudden, the weather changed, the skies blackened, the winds whistled, and all the usual forerunners of a storm began to threaten them; nothing was

now desired but to return to the ship, but the thickness of the fog intercepting it from their sight, made the attempt little other than desperate. By so many unforeseen accidents is prudence itself liable to be embarrassed! So difficult is it sometimes for the quickest sagacity, and most enlightened experience, to judge what measures ought to be taken! To trust another to sound an unknown coast, appeared to Drake folly and presumption; to be absent from his fleet, though but for an hour, proved nothing less than to hazard the success of their labours, hardships, and dangers.

In this perplexity, which Drake was not more sensible of than those whom he had left in the ships, nothing was to be omitted, however dangerous, that might contribute to extricate them from it, as they could venture nothing of equal value with the life of their general. Captain Thomas therefore, having the lightest vessel, steered boldly into the bay, and taking the general aboard, dropped anchor, and lay out of danger, while the rest that were in the open sea suffered much from the tempest, and the Mary, a Portuguese prize, was driven away before the wind; the others, as soon as the tempest was over, discovering by the fires which were made on shore where Drake was, repaired to him.

Here going on shore they met with no inhabitants, though there were several houses or huts standing, in which they found a good quantity of dried fowls, and among them a great number of ostriches, of which the thighs were as large as those of a sheep. These birds are too heavy and unwieldy to rise from the ground, but with the

help of their wings run so swiftly, that the English could never come near enough to shoot at them. The Indians, commonly, by holding a large plume of feathers before them, and walking gently forward, drive the ostriches into some narrow neck, or point of land, then spreading a strong net from one side to the other, to hinder them from returning back to the open fields, set their dogs upon them, thus confined between the net and the water, and when they are thrown on their backs, rush in and take them.

Not finding this harbour convenient, or well stored with wood and water, they left it on the 15th of May, and on the 18th entered another much safer, and more commodious, which they no sooner arrived at, than Drake, whose restless application never remitted, sent Winter to the southward, in quest of those ships which were absent, and immediately after sailed himself to the northward, and, happily meeting with the Swan, conducted it to the rest of the fleet; after which, in pursuance of his former resolution, he ordered it to be broken up, reserving the iron work for a future supply. The other vessel which they lost in the late storm could not be discovered.

While they were thus employed upon an island about a mile from the main land, to which, at low water, there was a passage on foot, they were discovered by the natives, who appeared upon a hill at a distance, dancing and holding up their hands, as beckoning the English to them; which Drake observing, sent out a boat, with knives, bells, and bugles, and such things as, by their usefulness or novelty, he imagined would be agreeable. As soon as the English landed, they observed two men