1682.]

CARACAS AND ITS CACAO TREES.

surface is grained or knobbed, but more coarse and unequal. The cods at first are of a dark green, but the side of them next the sun of a muddy red. As they grow ripe the green turns to a fine bright yellow and the muddy to a more lively beautiful red, very pleasant to the eye. They neither ripen nor are gathered [all] at once; but for three weeks or a month, when the season is, the overseers of the plantations go every day about to see which are turned yellow, cutting at once, it may be, not above one from a tree. The cods thus gathered they lay in several heaps to sweat, and then, bursting the shell with their hands, they pull out the nuts, which are the only substance they contain, having no stalk or pith among them; and (excepting that these nuts lie in regular rows) are placed like the grains of maize, but sticking to gether, and so closely stowed, that after they have been once separated, it would be hard to place them again in so narrow a compass. There are generally near 100 nuts in a cod, in proportion to the greatness of which, for it varies, the nuts are bigger or less. When taken out they dry them in the sun upon mats spread on the ground, after which they need no more care, having a thin hard skin of their own, and much oil, which preserves them. Salt water will not hurt them, for we had our bags rotten lying in the bottom of our ships, and yet the nuts never the worse. They raise the young trees [from] nuts set with the great end downward in fine black mould, and in the same places where they are to bear, which they do in four or five years' time without the trouble of transplanting. There are ordinarily of these trees from 500 to 2000 and upwards in a plantation, or cacao walk as they call them; and they shelter the young trees from the weather with plantains set about them for two or three years, destroying all the plantains by such time the cacao trees are of a pretty good body and able to endure the heat, which I take to be most pernicious to them of anything; for though these valleys lie

149

open to the north winds, unless a little sheltered here and there by some groves of plantain trees which are purposely set near the shores of the several bays, yet, by all that I could either observe or learn, the cacaos in this country are never blighted, as I have often known them to be in other places. Cacao nuts are used as money in the Bay of Campeachy.

In

The chief town of this country is called Caracas, a good way within land; it is a large wealthy place, where live most of the owners of these cacao walks that are in the valleys by the shore, the plantations being managed by overseers and Negroes. It is in a large savannah country that abounds with cattle; and a Spaniard of my acquaintance, a very sensible man who hath been there, tells me that it is very populous, and he judges it to be three times as big as Coruña in Galicia. The way to it is very steep and craggy, over that ridge of hills which I said closes up the valleys and partition hills of the cacao coast. this coast itself the chief place is La Guayra, a good town close by the sea; and though it has but a bad harbour, yet it is much frequented by the Spanish shipping, for the Dutch and English anchor in the sandy bays that lie here and there in the mouth of several valleys, and where there is very good riding. The town is open, but has a strong fort, yet both were taken some years since by Captain Wright and his Privateers. It is seated about four or five leagues to the westward of Cape Blanco, which is the easternmost boundary of this coast of Caracas. Farther eastward, about twenty leagues, is a great lake or branch of the sea, called La Laguna de Venezuela, about which are many rich towns; but the mouth of the lake is [so] shallow that no ships can enter. Near this mouth is a place called Cumana, where the Privateers were once repulsed without daring to attempt it any more, being the only place in the North Seas they attempted in vain for many years; and the Spaniards since throw it in their teeth frequently as a word of

reproach or defiance to them. Not far from that place is Varinas, a small village and Spanish plantation famous for its tobacco, reputed the best in the world. But to return to Caracas. All this coast is subject to dry winds, generally north-east, which caused us to have scabby lips; and we always found it thus, and that in different seasons of the year, for I have been on this coast several times. In other respects it is very healthy, and a sweet clear air. The Spaniards have lookouts or scouts on the hills, and breastworks in the valleys, and most of their Negroes are furnished with arms also for defence of the bays. The Dutch have a very profitable trade here almost to themselves. have known three or four great ships at a time on the coast, each, it may be, of 30 or 40 guns. They carry hither all sorts of European commodities, especially linen, making vast returns, chiefly in silver and cacao. And I have often wondered and regretted that none of my own countrymen find the way thither directly from England, for our Jamaica-men trade thither indeed, and find the sweet1 of it, though they carry English commodities at second or third hand.

I

any manner of bait, whether fish or
flesh. The sucking-fish is about the
bigness of a large whiting, and much
of the same shape towards the tail,
but the head is flatter. From the
head to the middle of its back there
grows a sort of flesh of a hard gristly
substance, like that part of the lim-
pet, a shell-fish tapering up pyramidi-
cally, which sticks to the rocks; or
like the head or mouth of a shell-
snail, but harder. This excrescence
is of a flat oval form about seven or
eight inches long and five or six
broad, and rising about half-an-inch
high. It is full of small ridges, with
which it will fasten itself to anything
that it meets with in the sea, just as
a snail does to a wall. When any of
them happen to come about a ship,
they seldom leave her, for they will
feed on such filth as is daily thrown
overboard, or on mere excrements.
When it is fair weather and but little
wind, they will play about the ship;
but in blustering weather, or when
the ship sails quick, they commonly
fasten themselves to the ship's bot-
tom, from whence neither the ship's
motion, though never so swift, nor
the most tempestuous sea, can remove
them. They will likewise fasten
themselves to any other bigger fish,
for they never swim fast themselves
if they meet with anything to carry
them. I have found them sticking
to a shark after it was hauled in on
the deck, though a shark is so strong
and boisterous a fish, and throws
about him so vehemently for half-an-
hour together, it may be, when caught,
that did not the sucking-fish stick at
no ordinary rate it must needs be cast
off by so much violence. It is usual
also to see them sticking to turtle, to
any old trees, planks, or the like,
that lie driving at sea.
Any knobs
or inequalities at a ship's bottom are
a great hindrance to the swiftness of
its sailing, and ten or twelve of these
sticking to it must needs retard it as
much, in a manner, as if its bottom
were foul. So that I am inclined to
think that this fish is the Remora, of

While we lay on this coast we went ashore in some of the bays and took seven or eight tons of cacao; and after that, three barks, one laden with hides, the second with European commodities, the third with earthenware and brandy. With these three barks we went again to the Islands of Roques, where we shared our commodities, and separated, having vessels enough to transport us all whither we thought most convenient. Twenty of us (for we were about sixty) took one of the vessels and our share of the goods, and went directly for Virginia. In our way thither we took several of the sucking-fishes, for when we see them about the ship we cast out a line and hook, and they will take it with

2

1 Advantage, gratification. The Echeneis remora, or sea lam- which the ancients tell such stories:

prey.

if it be not, I know no other that is,

1682.1

PREPARATIONS FOR A NEW VOYAGE.

and I leave the reader to judge.
have seen these sucking-fishes in great
plenty in the Bay of Campeachy, and
in all the sea between that and the
coast of Caracas, as about those islands
particularly I have lately described,
Roques, Blanco, Tortuga, &c. They
have no scales, and are very good meat.
We met nothing else worth remark
in our voyage to Virginia, where we
arrived in July 1682. That country
is so well known to our nation, that
I shall say nothing of it; nor shall I
detain the reader with the story of
my own affairs, and the troubles that
befell me during about thirteen
months of my stay there but in the
next Chapter enter immediately upon
my Second Voyage into the South
Seas and round the Globe.

CHAPTER IV.

151

Ition and in the First and Second Chapters), there was one Mr Cooke, an English native of St Christopher's, a Creole, as we call all born of European parents in the West Indies. He was a sensible man, and had been some years a Privateer. At our joining ourselves with those Privateers we met at our coming again to the North Seas, his lot was to be with Captain Yanky, who kept company for some considerable time with Captain Wright, in whose ship I was, and parted with us at our second anchoring at the Isle of Tortuga. After our parting, this Mr Cooke, being Quarter-master under Captain Yanky, the second place in the ship, according to the law of Privateers, laid claim to a ship they took from the Spaniards; and such of Captain Yanky's men as were so disposed, particularly all those who came with us overland, went aboard this prize ship, under the new Captain Cooke. This distribution was made at the Isle of Vacca, or the Isle of Ash, as we call it; and here they parted also such goods as they had taken. But Captain Cooke having no commission, as Captain Yanky, Captain Tristian, and some other French commanders had, who lay then at that island, and they grudging the English such a vessel, they all joined together, plundered the English of their ship, goods, and arms, and turned them ashore. Captain Tristian took in about eight or ten of these English, and carried them with him to Petit Goave; of 1 Pliny, in the opening chapter of which number Captain Cooke was his 32d book, is very eloquent on the one, and Captain Davis another, who powers of the echineis, or remora, or with the rest found means to seize delaying-fish. "Let the winds rush," the ship as she lay at anchor in the he says, among other grandiose road, Captain Tristian and many of things, and the storms rage, one his men being then ashore. And the little fishling lays commands on their English sending ashore such Frenchfury, and controls their mighty forces, men as remained in the ship and were and compels the ships to stand still mastered by them, though superior a thing that could be done by no in number, stood away with her imbonds, by no anchor cast with irrevo-mediately for the Isle of Vacca, before cable weight. It curbs the shocks and tames the madness of the world by no labour of its own, not by holding back, nor in any other way than simply by adhering."

BEING now entering upon the relation of a new voyage, which makes up the main body of this book, proceeding from Virginia by the way of Tierra del Fuego and the South Seas, the East Indies, and so on, till my return to England by the way of the Cape of Good Hope, I shall give my reader this short account of my first entrance upon it. Among those who accompanied Captain Sharpe into the South Seas in our former expedition, and, leaving him there, returned overland (as is said in the Introduc

Yet

any notice of this surprise could reach the French Governor of that Isle; so deceiving him also by a stratagem, they got on board the rest of their countrymen who had been left on

1683.]

AMONG THE CAPE VERD ISLANDS.

requital a coat to clothe him; for
he had nothing but a few rags on his
back, and an old hat not worth three
farthings; which yet I believe he
wore but seldom, for fear he should
want before he might get another, for
he told us there had not been a ship in
three years before. We bought of
him about twenty bushels of salt for
a few old clothes; and he begged a
little powder and shot. We stayed
here three days: in which time one
of these Portuguese offered to some
of our men a lump of ambergris in
exchange for some clothes, desiring
them to keep it secret; for he said if
the Governor should know it he should
be hanged. At length one Mr Cop-
pinger bought it for a small matter;
yet I believe he gave more than it
was worth. We had not a man in the
ship that knew ambergris: but I
have since seen it in other places,
and therefore am certain it was not
right. It was of a dark colour like
sheep's dung, and very soft, but of
no smell; and possibly it was some of
their goats' dung.
We went
from this Island of Salto San Nicolas,
another of the Cape Verd Islands,
lying WSW. from Sal about twenty-
two leagues. We arrived there the
next day after we left the other, and
anchored on the SE. side of the
island. This is a pretty large island;
it is one of the biggest of all the
Cape Verd, and lies in a triangular
form. The largest side, which lies
to the east, is about thirty leagues
long, and the other two above twenty
leagues each. It is a mountainous
barren island, and rocky all round
towards the sea; yet in the heart of
it there are valleys where the Portu-
guese which inhabit here have vine-
yards and plantations and wood for
fuel. Here are many goats, which
are but poor in comparison with those
in other places, yet much better than
those at Sal; there are likewise many
asses. The Governor of this island
came aboard us, with three or four
gentlemen more in his company, who
were all indifferently well clothed, and
accontred with swords and pistols ;
but the rest that accompanied him to

153

the sea-side, which were about twenty or thirty men more, were but in a ragged garb. The Governor brought aboard some wine made in the island, which tasted much like Madeira wine; it was of a pale colour, and looked thick. He told us the chief town was in a valley fourteen miles from the bay where we rode; that he had there under him above one hundred families besides other inhabitants that lived scattering in valleys more remote. They were all very swarthy; the Governor was the clearest of them, yet of a dark tawny complexion. At this island we scrubbed the bottom of our ship; and here also we dug wells ashore on the bay, and filled all our water; and after five or six days' stay we went from hence to Mayo, another of the Cape Verd Islands, lying about forty miles E. and by S. from the other; arriving there the next day, and anchoring on the NW. side of the island. We sent our boat on shore, intending to have purchased some provision, as beef or goats, with which this island is better stocked than the rest of the islands. But the inhabitants would not suffer our men to land; for about a week before our arrival, there came an English ship, the men of which came ashore pretending friendship, and seized on the Governor with some others, and carrying them aboard made them send ashore for cattle to ransom their liberties: and yet after this set sail, and carried them away, and they had not heard of them since. The Englishman that did this, as I was afterwards informed, was one Captain Bond of Bristol. Whether ever he brought back those men again, I know not. He himself and most of his men have since gone over to the Spaniards: and it was he who had like to have burnt our ship after this in the Bay of Panama, as I shall have occasion to relate. This Isle of Mayo is but small and environed with shoals, yet a place much frequented by shipping, for its great plenty of salt; and though there is but bad

1 In Chapter VII., page 193.