every other kind of food, and often felicitated each other on the happy experience they had acquired, and the luxurious and plentiful repasts it would always be in their power to procure when they should again return back to their country. Those who are acquainted with the manner of life of these unhappy wretches need not be told that, next to large draughts of spirituous liquors, plenty {206} of tolerable food is the greatest joy they know, and consequently the discovering the means of being always supplied with what quantity they pleased of a food more delicious to the palate than any their haughty lords and masters could indulge in, was doubtless a circumstance which they considered as the most fortunate that could befall them. After this digression, which the prodigious quantity of turtle on this island of Quibo, and the store of it we thence took to sea, in some measure led me into, I shall now return to our own proceedings. In three days' time we had compleated our business at this place, and were extremely impatient to depart, that we might arrive time enough on the coast of Mexico to intercept the Manila galeon. But the wind being contrary, detained us a night; and the next day, when we got into the offing, which we did through the same channel by which we entered, we were obliged to keep hovering about the island, in hopes of getting sight of the _Gloucester_, who, as I have in the last chapter mentioned, was separated from us on our first arrival. It was the 9th of December, in the morning, when we put to sea; and continuing to the southward of the island, looking out for the _Gloucester_, we, on the 10th, at five in the afternoon, discerned a small sail to the northward of us, to which we gave chace, and coming up with her took her. She proved to be a bark from Panama called the _Jesu Nazareno_. She had nothing on board but some oakum, about a ton of rock salt, and between £30 and £40 in specie, most of it consisting of small silver money intended for purchasing a cargoe of provisions at Cheripe, an inconsiderable village on the continent. And on occasion of this prize I cannot but observe for the use of future cruisers that, had we been in want of provisions, we had by this capture an obvious method of supplying ourselves. For at Cheripe there is a constant store of provisions prepared for the vessels who go thither every week from Panama, the market of Panama being chiefly supplied from thence: so that by putting a few of our hands on board our prize, we might easily have seized a large quantity without any hazard, since Cheripe is a place of no strength. As provisions are the staple commodity of that place and of its neighbourhood, the knowledge of this circumstance may be of great use to such cruisers as find their provisions grow {207} scant and yet are desirous of continuing on that coast as long as possible. But to return.