38' N. Ten Leagues
From Cape Corientes, Being The N.W. Point Of This Bay Of The Valley Of
Valderas.
A league beyond this point to the W. there are two little
isles called the Pontiques, and beyond these to the north the shore is
rugged for eighteen leagues.
The 14th we came to anchor in a channel
between the continent and a small white rocky isle, in lat. 21 deg. 15'. The
20th we anchored a league short of the isles of Chametly, different
from those formerly mentioned under the same name, being six small isles
in lat 28 deg. 11' N. three leagues from the continent.[185] One or two of
these isles have some sandy creeks, and they produce a certain fruit
called penguins. These are of two sorts, one red and the other yellow.
The plant producing the latter is as thick in the stem as a man's arm,
with leaves six inches long and an inch broad, edged with prickles. The
fruit grows in clusters at the top of the stem, being round and as large
as an egg, having a thick rind, inclosing a pulp full of black seeds, of
a delightful taste. The red penguin grows directly out of the ground,
without any stalk, sometimes sixty or seventy in a cluster, no bigger
than onions, but the shape of nine-pins, the cluster being surrounded
with prickly leaves eighteen inches or two feet long.
[Footnote 185: In modern maps these are called the isles of Mazatlan,
and are placed in lat.
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