Being weary of these continual fruitless tussles, "and because our victuals grew scant," Drake sailed from the port the following morning, in slightly better weather, hoping to get fresh provisions at the Rio Grande, where he had met with such abundance a few days before. The wind was still fresh from the west, so that he could not rejoin his ship nor reach one of his magazines. He took two days in sailing to the Magdalena, but when he arrived there he found the country stripped. "We found bare nothing, not so much as any people left," for the Spaniards had ordered everyone to retire to the hills, driving their cattle with them, "that we might not be relieved by them." The outlook was now serious, for there was very little food left, and that of most indifferent quality, much of it being spoiled by the rains and the salt water. On the day of their landfall they rowed hard for several hours to capture a frigate, but she was as bare of food as they. "She had neither meat nor money," and so "our great hope" was "converted into grief." Sailors get used to living upon short allowance. The men tightened their belts to stay their hunger, and splashed salt water on their chests to allay their thirst. They ran for Santa Martha, a little city to the east, where they hoped "to find some shipping in the road, or limpets on the rocks, or succour against the storm in that good harbour." They found no shipping there, however, and little succour against the storm. They anchored "under the western point, where is high land," but they could not venture in, for the town was strongly fortified (later raiders were less squeamish). The Spaniards had seen them come to moorings, and managed to send some thirty or forty musketeers among the rocks, within gunshot of them. These kept up a continual musket fire, which did bodily hurt to none, but proved a sad annoyance to sailors who were wearied and out of victuals. They found it impossible to reply to the musketry, for the rocks hid the musketeers from view. There was nothing for it but to "up kedge and cut," in the hope of finding some less troublous berth. As they worked across the Santa Martha bay the culverins in the city batteries opened fire. One shot "made a near escape," for it fell between the pinnaces as they lay together in "conference of what was best to be done."