Spaniards could muster in that part of the world, since this island towards the harbour is steep too, and has six fathom water close to the shore, so that the pink anchored within forty yards of it. Whence it is obvious how impossible it would prove, either to board or to cut out any vessel protected by a force posted on shore within pistol-shot, and where those who were thus posted could not themselves be attacked. All these circumstances seem to render this port worthy of a more accurate examination; and it is to be hoped that the important uses which this rude account of it seems to suggest may hereafter recommend it to the consideration of the public, and to the attention of those who are more immediately entrusted with the conduct of our naval affairs. After this description of the place where the pink lay for two months, it may be expected that I should relate the discoveries made by the crew on the adjacent coast, and the principal incidents during their stay there; but here I must observe, that, being only a few in number, they did not dare to detach any of their people on distant searches, for they were perpetually terrified with the apprehension that they should be attacked either by the Spaniards or the Indians; so that their excursions were generally confined to that tract of land which surrounded the port, and where they were never out of view of the ship. Though had they at first known how little foundation there was for these fears, yet the country in the neighbourhood was so grown up with wood, and traversed with mountains, that it appeared impracticable to penetrate it: whence no account of the inland parts could be expected from them. Indeed they were able to disprove the relations given by Spanish writers, who have represented this coast as inhabited by a fierce and powerful people, for they were certain that no such inhabitants were there to be found, at least during the {136} winter season, since all the time they continued there, they saw no more than one Indian family, which came into the harbour in a periagua, about a month after the arrival of the pink, and consisted of an Indian near forty years old, his wife, and two children, one three years of age and the other still at the breast. They seemed to have with them all their property, which was a dog and a cat, a fishing-net, a hatchet, a knife, a cradle, some bark of trees intended for the covering of a hut, a reel, some worsted, a flint and steel, and a few roots of a yellow hue and a very disagreeable taste which served them for bread. The master of the pink, as soon as he perceived them, sent his yawl, who brought them on board; and fearing, lest they might discover him, if they were permitted to go away, he took, as he conceived, proper precautions for securing them, but without any mixture of ill usage or violence, for in the daytime they were permitted to go where they pleased about the ship, but at night were locked up in the forecastle. As they were fed