N. Latitude, And About Two Leagues From Each Other.
The bay
of St Vincent, in which they anchored, is in lat.
16 deg. 56' N. and has a
good firm sandy bottom, with eighteen, twenty, and twenty-five fathoms
water. The island of St Vincent is rocky, barren, and uncultivated,
having very little fresh water, though they found a small spring which
might have served two or three ships. By digging wells they procured
plenty of water, but somewhat brackish, to which they attributed the
bloody flux, which soon after began to prevail in the fleet. The goats
there, of which they caught fifteen or sixteen every day, were very fat
and excellent eating. The sea-tortoises which they took there were from
two to three feet long. They come on shore to lay their eggs, which they
cover with sand, leaving them to be hatched by the heat of the sun.
Their season of laying eggs is from August to February, remaining all
the rest of the year in the sea. They caught every night great numbers
of these animals while ashore to lay their eggs, and the sailors found
them wholesome and pleasant food, eating more like flesh than fish.
This island is altogether uninhabited, but the people of St Lucia come
here once a year to catch tortoises, for the sake of an oil they prepare
from them; and to hunt goats, the skins of which are sent to Portugal,
and their flesh, after being salted and dried at St Jago, is exported to
Brazil. There are no fruit-trees in this island, except a few wild figs
in the interior; besides which, it produces colocinth, or bitter apple
which is a very strong purge.[134] This island has a very dry climate,
except during the rainy season, which begins in August and ends in
February, but is not very regular.
[Footnote 134: Cucumis Colocynthis, a plant of the cucumber family,
producing a fruit about the size of an orange, the medullary part of
which, when ripe, dried, and freed from the seeds, is a very light,
white, spongy substance, composed of membranous leaves, excessively
bitter, nauseous, and acrid.]
The island of St Antonio is inhabited by about 500 negroes, including
men, women, and children, who subsist chiefly on goats, and also
cultivate a small quantity of cotton. On the sea-side they have
extensive plantations of lemons and oranges, whence they gather great
quantities every year. These were very readily supplied to the Dutch by
the negroes in exchange for mercery goods, but they saw neither hogs,
sheep, nor poultry in the island.
Sailing from St Vincent's on the 25th July, they anchored in the road of
Sierra Leona on the 11th August. Here on the 15th some of the crew being
on shore, eat freely of certain nuts resembling nutmegs, which had a
fine taste, but had scarcely got on board when one of them dropt down
dead, and before he was thoroughly cold he was all over purple spots.
The rest recovered by taking proper medicines. Sierra Leona is a
mountain on the continent of Africa, standing on the south side of the
mouth of the river Mitomba, which discharges itself into a great bay of
the sea. The road in which ships usually anchor is in the lat. of 8 deg. 20'
N. This mountain is very high, and thickly covered with trees, by which
it may be easily known, as there is no mountain of such height any where
upon the coast. There grow here a prodigious number of trees, producing
a small kind of lemons called limasses, (limes?) resembling those of
Spain in shape and taste, and which are very agreeable and wholesome, if
not eaten to excess. The Dutch fleet arrived here at the season when
this fruit was in perfection, and having full leave from the natives,
the people eat them intemperately; by which, and the bad air, the bloody
flux increased much among them, so that they lost forty men between the
11th of August and the 5th September. Sierra Leona abounds in
palm-trees, and has some ananas, or pine-apples, with plenty of wood of
all sorts, besides having an exceedingly convenient watering-place
opposite to the anchorage.
They sailed from Sierra Leona on the 4th September, on which day the
admiral fell sick. On the 29th they were off the island of St Thomas,
just on the north side of the line, and anchored on the 1st of October
at Cape Lopo Gonzalves, in lat. 0 deg. 50' S. At this place the surgeon of
the Maurice was convicted on his own confession of having poisoned seven
sick men, because they had given him much trouble, for which he was
beheaded. On the 30th of October they anchored in the road of Annobon,
where they obtained hogs and fowls, and were allowed to take in water,
and to gather as many oranges as they thought proper. The east end of
this island, where are the road and village, is in lat. 1 deg. 30' S. and
long. 6 deg. E. from Greenwich. The island is about six leagues in circuit,
consisting of high and tolerably good land, and is inhabited by about
150 families of negroes, who are governed by two or three Portuguese, to
whom they are very submissive. If any of them happen to be refractory,
they are immediately sent away to the island of St Thomas, a punishment
which they greatly dread. The island abounds in ananas, bananas,
cocoa-nuts, tamarinds, and sugar-canes; but the principal inducement for
ships touching here is the great plenty of oranges, of which the Dutch
gathered upwards of 200,000, besides what the seamen eat while on shore.
These oranges were of great size and full of juice, some weighing three
quarters of a pound, and of an excellent taste and flavour, as if
perfumed. They are to be had ripe all the year round, but there is one
season in which they are best and fittest for keeping, which was past
before the Dutch arrived, and the oranges were then mostly over ripe and
beginning to rot.
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