We have found Salt-pits there, and, which is a Note of the Fertility of the Soil, there are in many places Canes, whereof some are five of six Handfuls thick, with Fruit answerable to that Proportion. The Top of that Fruit is very small and hard, and the Skin thereof is exceeding sweet. There are also Flints for Fire, equal in Goodness to those of _Madrid_. The Bay of St. _James_ and St. _Philip_ hath twenty Leagues of Bank, and is without Mud, into which there is a sure and safe Entrance both by Day and Night. It is sheltered and covered with many Houses, which in the Day-time we have seen a far off to send forth Smoak, and in the Night to shew forth Fire. The Haven, called _The true Cross_, is of that spacious Capacity, that it is able to contain a Thousand Ships. The Bottom, as I have said, is without Mud, and hath a blackish colour'd Sand wherewithal it is covered. There are no Gulfs or deep Pits, but an assured and easie Anchorage in what part soever you will, from forty to half a Fathom; and it is between the Mouths of two Rivers, the one whereof is as great as that of _Quadalguiver_, and hath Mud of a Fathom deep, over which our Shalops and Boats did pass. For the other River, when our Skiffs went to water there, they found the Entrance safe and easie. And a Man may from the very Mouth of the River take in as much fresh Water as he will. The place where Ships may be unloaded hath three Leagues of Gravel, mingled with little Flints, blackish and very heavy, which will serve for Balast for Ships. The Bank is straight and united, on which much green Grass doth grow and prosper, and that makes me to conceive that the Sea doth not beat or rage thereupon: I observe that the Trees are strait, and the Branches not dismembred, which is a Token that there are no Tempests there. Touching the Port, besides the Commodities which I have already discoursed of, there is one of marvellous Pleasure and Contentation. And that is, at the Dawning of the Day you shall hear from a Wood, which is near at hand, a sweet and various Harmony of a thousand Birds of all sorts, amongst which we could distinguish the Nightingales, Black-birds, Quails, Goldfinches, Swallows almost without Number, Parrochito's, and one Parrot we marked there, and Creatures of sundry other kinds, even down to Grass-hoppers and Field-Crickets.