If an enemy of the king of Spain should hold the said Porto-bello, he could prevent any thing leaving Peru, except with great difficulty and risk, and at more expense than profit. Drac[89] went to the said Porto-bello, in order to surprise it, but he failed in his enterprise, having been discovered; in consequence of which, he died from disappointment, and ordered, in dying, that they should put him in a coffin of lead, and throw him into the sea, between an island and the said Porto-bello. [89] Sir Francis Drake, after his unsuccessful attempt on Porto-rico, pursued his voyage to Nombre-de-Dios, where, having landed his men, he attempted to pass forward to Panama with a view of plundering that place, or if he found such a scheme practicable, of keeping and fortifying it, but he met not with the same facility which had attended his first enterprises in those parts. The Spaniards had fortified the passes, and stationed troops in the woods, who so infested the English with continual alarms and skirmishes, that they were obliged to return without effecting anything. Drake himself, from the intemperance of the climate, the fatigues of his journey and the vexation of his disappointment, was seized with a distemper of which he soon after died. (See Hume's "Hist. of England," ann. 1597. Drake died on the 30th of December, 1596, old style, 9th of January, 1597, MS.,) and his body was disposed of in the manner mentioned by Champlain. Having remained a month at the said Porto-bello, I returned to St. Jean de Luz, where we sojourned fifteen days, waiting while our ships were careened, to go to the Havanna, to the rendezvous of the armies and fleets; and for that purpose, having left the said St. Jean de Luz, when we were twenty leagues at sea, a hurricane took us with such fury, with a north wind, that we thought all was lost, and were so separated one from the other, that we could only rally at the Havanna. On the other hand, our ship made so much water, that we thought we could not avoid the peril; for if we took half an hour's repose, without pumping out the water, we were obliged to work for two hours without ceasing; and had we not met with a patache, which set us in our route again, we should have been lost on the coast of Campesche. On this coast of Campesche, there are quantities of salt, which is made and procured without artificial means, by reservoirs of water, which remain after the high tides, where it crystallizes in the sun. Our pilot had lost all knowledge of the navigation, but the grace of God sent us this meeting with the patache.