At the island of Mogador, off the coast of Barbary, Drake attempted to traffic with the Moors, and in an exchange of hostages lost a man, who was taken by the natives: they then refused to trade, and Drake, after a vain effort to recover the sailor, left the island, and followed the African coast to the southward. Between Mogador and Cape Blanco he took several Spanish barks called canters,--one of which, measuring forty tons, he admitted into his fleet, sending his prisoners off in the Christopher, the pinnace of fifteen tons and one of the original five vessels. He landed on the island of Mayo, where the inhabitants salted their wells, forsook their houses, and drove away their goats. Off the island of Santiago he took a Portuguese vessel bound for Brazil, carrying numerous passengers and laden with wine. He kept the pilot, Nuno da Sylva, gave the passengers and crew a pinnace, and transferred the wine to the Pelican. The prize he made one of the fleet, having given her a crew of twenty-eight men. At Cape Verd Drake left the African shore, and, steering steadily to the southwest, was nine weeks without seeing land. When near the equator, he prepared his men for the change of climate by bleeding them all himself. He made the coast of Brazil on the 4th of April, 1578,--the savage inhabitants making large bonfires at their approach, for the purpose, as he learned from Sylva, of inducing their devils to wreck the ships upon their coast. On the 27th he entered the Rio de la Plata, and, sailing up the stream till he found but three fathoms' water, filled his casks by the ship's side. The same night, the Portuguese prize, now named the Mary, and commanded by John Doughty, parted company, as did two days afterwards the Spanish canter, which had been named the Christopher, after the pinnace for which she had been exchanged. Drake, believing them to have concealed themselves in shoal water, built a raft and set sail in quest of them. [Illustration: DRAKE AND HIS RAFT.]