On the ninth we founde a very deepe and dangerous baye, playinge it here up and downe: all men weary of the place. The tenth we descried a small iland called Escudes, where we came to anchor: and here we tooke a frygotte which was an advice of the kinge’s. By this we learned that the townes standinge upon this lake, were of small wealth and very dangerous, by reason of many shoals and greate roughes our mariners should have, it beinge an hundred leagues: yet if the winde would have permitted, we had assuredly put for them, and never returned to one halfe againe. Heere we stayed, at a waste island where there was no reliefe but a few tortoyses for such as could catch them, twelve days. This is counted the sickliest place of the Indies; and heere died many of our men, victualls beginninge to growe scarse with us. In the end, findinge the winde to continue contrary, he resolved to departe, and to take the winde as God sent it. So on the twenty-second we went hence, having there buried Captaine Plott, Egerton, and divers others. I questioned with our generall, beinge often private with him whilst we stayed heere, to see whether hee would reveale unto mee any of his purposes; and I demanded of him, why hee so often conjured me, beinge in England, to stay with him in these partes as longe as himselfe, and where the place was. He answered me with griefe, protestinge that hee was as ignorant of the Indies as mysealfe, and that he never thought any place could be so changed, as it were from a delitious and pleasant arbour into a wast and desarte wildernesse; besides the variableness of the winde and weather, so stormie and blusterous as hee never sawe it before. But hee most wondred that since his cominge out of England he never sawe sayle worth givinge chace unto: yet in the greatness of his minde, hee would, in the end, conclude with these wordes: “It matters not, man; God hath many thinges in store for us; and I knowe many means to do Her Majestie good service and to make us riche, for we must have gould before wee see Englande”; when, goode gentleman, (in my conceite) it fared with him as with some careles livinge man who prodigally consumes his time, fondly perswadinge himselfe that the nurse that fedde him in his childhood will likewise nourish him in his ould age, and, finding the dugge dried and withered, enforced then to behould his folly, tormented in mind, dieth with a starved bodie. Hee had, beside his own adventure, gaged his owne reputation greatly, in promisinge Her Majestie to do her honorable service, and to returne her a very profitable adventure; and havinge sufficiently experienced, for seven or eight years together, how hard it was to regain favour once ill thought of, the mistresse of his fortune now leavinge him to yield to a discontented minde. And since our returne from Panama he never caried mirth nor joy in his face; yet no man hee loved must conjecture that hee tooke thought thereof. But heere hee began to grow sickly.