On the 25th we had a sight of the island of Gallo, bearing E.S.E.½E. four leagues distant; and from hence we crossed the bay of Panama with a N.W. course, hoping that this would have carried us in a direct line to the island of Quibo. But we afterwards found that we ought to have stood more to the westward, for the winds in a short time began to incline to that quarter, and made it difficult to gain the island. After passing the equinoctial (which we did on the 22d) and leaving the neighbourhood of the Cordilleras, and standing more and more towards the isthmus, where the {199} communication of the atmosphere to the eastward and the westward was no longer interrupted, we found in very few days an extraordinary alteration in the climate. For instead of that uniform temperature where neither the excess of heat or cold was to be complained of, we had now, for several days together, close and sultry weather, resembling what we had before met with on the coast of Brazil, and in other parts between the tropics on the eastern side of America. We had besides frequent calms and heavy rains, which we at first ascribed to the neighbourhood of the line, where this kind of weather is generally found to prevail at all seasons of the year; but observing that it attended us to the latitude of seven degrees north, we were at length induced to believe that the stormy season, or, as the Spaniards call it, the Vandevals, was not yet over; though many writers, particularly Captain Shelvocke, positively assert that this season begins in June, and is ended in November, and our prisoners all affirmed the same thing. But perhaps its end may not be always constant, and it might last this year longer than usual. On the 27th, Captain Mitchel having finished the clearing of his largest prize, she was scuttled and set on fire; but we still consisted of five ships, and were fortunate enough to find them all good sailors, so that we never occasioned any delay to each other. Being now in a rainy climate, which we had been long disused to, we found it necessary to caulk the decks and sides of the _Centurion_, to prevent the rain water from running into her.