The Other Towns In The Province Are Governed By Lieutenants, Or
Deputies, Appointed By The Corregidore.
Above half of these towns border
on the same river or its branches, so that their inhabitants can all
come to the capital in two tides, though some are many leagues distant.
Porto Vaco was formerly the capital.
In the whole province, the
Spaniards reckon 10,000 inhabitants, but I believe there are many more,
including all the mixed races between Spaniards, Indians, and negroes,
which they divide and subdivide into eleven denominations. Few of the
prisoners who fell into our hands were healthy or sound, and nearly half
of the native Spaniards applied to our doctors for remedies against the
French disease, which is so common here that it is reckoned no scandal.
On the 11th May, with a strong gale at S.S.W. we bore away for the
Gallepagos islands, being in a very sad condition; for we had upwards of
twenty men ill in the Duke, and near fifty in the Duchess, seized with a
malignant fever, contracted, as I suppose, at Guayaquil, where a
contagious disease had reigned a month or five weeks before we took it;
which swept away ten or twelve persons every day, so that all the
churches were filled, being their usual burying places, and they had to
dig a great deep hole close by the great church, where I kept guard, and
this hole was almost filled with putrefying bodies: and our lying so
long in that church, surrounded by such noisome scents, was enough to
infect us all. In twenty-four hours more we had fifty men down and the
Duchess upwards of seventy, and in the next twenty-four hours, ten more
fell sick in each ship. We discovered land on the 17th, and on the 18th,
at day-break, we were within four leagues of two large islands almost
joining each other, having passed that we first saw during the night. We
sent repeatedly ashore here in search of water, but could find none,
though the people went three or four miles up into the country, and
they reported that the island was nothing but loose rocks like cinders,
very rotten and heavy, and the earth so parched that it broke into holes
under their feet. This made me suppose there had been a volcano here;
and though there is much shrubby ground, with some green herbs, there
was not the smallest signs of water, neither was it possible for any to
be contained on such a surface. In short, we found these islands
completely to disappoint our expectations, and by no means to agree with
the descriptions of former voyagers. We had also the misfortune to lose
company of one of our barks, in which was Mr Hately, with five of our
men, two Spanish prisoners, and three negroes.[224]
[Footnote 224: Mr Hately, being unable to rejoin his companions, was
forced to land at Cape Passado in lat. 0 deg.
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