Traditions of this kind were very nicely calculated to keep the buccaneering heart high. Our genial freebooter has also another yarn to spin in connection with this coast. He says that in the time of Oliver Cromwell the merchants of Lima fitted out a ship armed with seventy brass guns, with a treasure in her hold of no less than thirty millions of dollars, “all which vast sum of money,” he says, “was given by the merchants of Lima, and sent as a present to our Gracious King (or rather his father) who now reigneth, to supply him in his exile and distress, but that this great and rich ship was lost by keeping along the shore in the Bay of Manta above mentioned or thereabouts. The truth whereof is much to be questioned.” Be his stories true or false, however, it is pleasant to sail in the company of an old seaman who has an anecdote to fit every bay or headland of the coast along which he jogs. Unhappily Ringrose, who begins very well, drifts fast into the unsuggestive trick of “loggings,” telling us in twenty pages at a stretch that on Monday the sun rose at such and such an hour, that on Tuesday it blew a fresh gale, that on Wednesday there was a ring round the moon, that on Thursday they had made thirty leagues in twenty-four hours, and so forth. It is by comparing the best of the early mariners' narratives with Dampier's that one remarks his eminent superiority as a writer, observer, and describer. As they sailed down the American seaboard they captured a few small vessels, but their booty was inconsiderable. On December 3rd, 1680, they attacked the city of La Serena. They routed the Spaniards, who, in flying, carried away the best of their goods and jewels. An offer of ransom was made, and the price fixed was ninety-five thousand pieces of eight. It was soon rendered plain, however, that the enemy had no intention of paying, whereupon the buccaneers fired every house in the town to the end that the whole place might be reduced to ashes. Before the ship sailed she was very nearly burnt by a curious Spanish stratagem. A horse's hide was blown out with wind to the condition of a bladder. A man got upon it and silently paddled himself under the stern of the privateer, between whose rudder and sternpost he crammed a mass of oakum, brimstone, and other combustible matter. This done, he softly fired it with a match and sneaked away ashore. The buccaneers observing the dark mass on the water, concluded it to be a dead horse, and gave it no particular heed. On a sudden the alarm of fire was raised; the rudder was seen to be burning and the ship was full of smoke. After some trouble the flames were extinguished, and then suspecting some stratagem in the object they had previously lightly glanced at, they sent the boat ashore, where the puffed-out hide was found with a match burning at both ends of it.