Returning On Board With The Rest Of His Men, And What Provisions Had
Been Carried Off, Captain Swan Resolved To Sail For Cape Lucas In
California, In Hopes Of Trafficking With The Indians There And In The
Lake Or Gulf Of California.
We accordingly sailed on the 21st with the
wind at N.W. and W.N.W. and anchored at the islands of Santa Maria, in
eight fathoms on clean sand.
There are three islands, usually called the
Three Marias,[190] stretching fourteen leagues from S.E. to N.W. of
moderate height, stony, barren, and uninhabited, in lat 21 deg. 30' N.
[long. 106 deg. 15' W.] from which Cape St Lucas in California is forty
leagues W.N.W. and Cape Corientes twenty leagues E.S.E. We anchored off
the east end of the middle island, which we called Prince George's
island. These islands produce some cedars, and we found near the sea a
green prickly plant, with leaves like those of the penguin plant, and
roots like those of the sempervivum, but much longer, the Indians of
California subsisting mostly on these roots. We baked and eat some of
these roots, which tasted like boiled burdock roots. I had been long
afflicted with dropsy, and was here buried in the sand for half an hour,
covered up to the neck, which brought on a profuse sweat, and I believe
with good effect, for I began to recover soon after. We careened here;
but as there is no fresh water to be had at this place in the dry
season, we had to return to the valley of Valderas, but finding the
river brackish we sailed three leagues nearer Cape Corientes, and
anchored beside a small round isle four leagues north of that cape, and
half a mile from the shore, opposite to a rivulet on the continent,
where we filled our water casks.
[Footnote 190: In reality four, the fourth or most northwesterly,
being named St Juanica. - E.]
Being now sufficiently convinced of our mistaken notion of the riches of
this coast, founded on an erroneous idea that the commerce of this
country was carried on by sea, whereas it is entirely conducted by land
on mules, we now resolved to try our fortune in the East Indies. With
this view we sailed from Cape Corientes on the 31st March, and next
noon, being thirty leagues from the cape, clear of the land-winds, we
had the wind at E.N.E. in which direction it continued till we were
within forty leagues of Guam. In all this long passage across the
Pacific, nearly in the lat. of 13 deg. N. we saw neither fish nor fowl
except once, when by my reckoning we were 5975 miles west from Cape
Corientes in Mexico, and then we saw a vast number of boobies,
supposed to come from some rocks not far off, which are laid down in
some hydrographical charts, but we saw them not.
May 20th, at four p.m. being in lat.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 225 of 431
Words from 117103 to 117610
of 224764
