On approaching the coast they found the bay guarded by numerous parties of horsemen, whilst the tops of the hills were also lined with men. They withdrew without firing a gun. Better luck, however, befell them on October 29th at Hilo. This place they took without difficulty, and found it stored with quantities of pitch, tar, wine, oil, and flour. The sacking of Hilo was a sort of holiday jaunt for the freebooters, who feasted delightfully on olives, lemons, and limes; on cakes, on flagons of cool wines, on great strawberries, and sweetmeats and other delicacies. As they marched up the valley the Spaniards accompanied their progress upon the hill-tops, and rolled great stones down upon them, but no man was hurt; whilst to the explosion of a single musket every visible Spanish head was instantly ducked out of sight. Much that strikes one as marvellous in the achievements of the buccaneers in the South Sea vanishes when one thinks of the abject cowardice of the American Spaniards. Had their troops been composed of priests and old women, they could not have fled with livelier hysterical nimbleness from the sight of the English colours. The picture is humiliating, though it is not wanting in the ridiculous. All through the buccaneering annals, as in Anson's and the voyages of others, one is incessantly meeting with this sort of thing:—A boat filled with armed privateersmen approaches the beach. A numerous party of horsemen, bristling with sabres, lances, and muskets, stand as in a posture to dispute their landing. But as the boat draws near the horsemen retreat, and in no very good order, back to behind the town as the seamen spring ashore. They are finally seen on the summit of a hill in company with several troops of foot soldiers, who, whilst their bands play and their banners proudly flutter, gaze downwards at the twenty or thirty sailors who are firing the houses of their town and lurching seawards with sacks of silver on their backs. Ringrose calls a halt at the “Isle of Plate,” as he writes it, to tell us a little story: “This Island received its Name from Sir _Francis Drake_, and his famous Actions. For it is reported that he here made the Dividend of that vast quantity of Plate which he took in the _Armada_ of this sea, distributing it to each Man of his Company by whole Bowls full. The _Spaniards_ affirm to this Day that he took at that Time twelvescore Tons of Plate, and sixteen bowls of coined Money a Man; his number being then forty-five Men in all; insomuch that they were forced to heave much of it overboard, because his ship could not carry it all. Hence this Island was called by the _Spaniards_ the _Isle of Plate_, from this great Dividend, and by us _Drake's Isle_.”