We returned from thence to the island of Plata, where we anchored on the 26th September, and sent some of our men that evening to _Manta_, a small Indian village on the continent, seven or eight leagues from Plata, and two or three leagues east from Cape Lorenzo. Its buildings are mean and scattered, but standing on an easy ascent, it has a fine prospect towards the sea-side. Having formerly been inhabited by the Spaniards, it has a fine church, adorned with carved work; but as the ground in the neighbourhood is very dry and sandy, it produces neither corn nor roots, and only a few shrubs are to be found. The inhabitants are supplied with provisions by sea, this being the first place at which ships refresh, when bound from Panama to Lima and other parts of Peru. They have an excellent spring of fresh water between the village and the sea. Opposite to this village, and a mile and a half from the shore, there is a very dangerous rock, being always covered by the sea; but about a mile within this rock there is safe anchorage, in six, eight, and ten fathoms, on hard clear sand; and a mile west from this, a shoal runs a mile out to sea. Behind the town, and directly to the south, a good way inland, there is a very high mountain rising up into the clouds, like a sugar-loaf; which serves as an excellent sea-mark, there being no other like it on all this coast. [161] [Footnote 161: The great Chimborazo is probably here meant, about 135 English miles inland from Manta, and almost due east, instead of south, as in the test.--E] Our men landed about day-break, a mile and a half from the village, but the inhabitants took the alarm, and got all away, except two old women, from whom we learnt that the viceroy, on receiving intelligence of enemies having come across the isthmus of Darien into the South Sea, had ordered all their ships to be set on fire, all the goats in the isle of Plata to be destroyed, and that the inhabitants on the coast should keep no more provisions than were necessary for their present use.