SECTION XIII.
Being cleare of the ilands, wee directed our course for Cape Black,[53] and two howres before sunne set, we had sight of a carvell some league in the winde of us, which seemed to come from Gynea, or the ilands of Cape de Verde, and for that hee, which had the sery-watch,[54] neglected to look out, being to lee-ward of the ilands, and so out of hope of sight of any shipp, for the little trade and contrariety of the winde, that though a man will, from few places hee can recover the ilands. Comming from the south-wards, wee had the winde of her, and perhaps the possession also, Note. whereof men of warre are to have particular care; for in an houre and place unlookt for, many times chance accidents contrary to the ordinary course and custome; and to have younkers in the top continually, is most convenient and necessary, not onely for descrying of sayles and land, but also for any sudden gust or occasion that may be offered.[55]
Exercises upon the southwards of the countries.
Seeing my selfe past hope of returning backe, without some extraordinary accident, I beganne to set in order my companie and victuals. And for that to the south-wards of the Canaries is for the most part an idle navigation, I devised to keepe my people occupied, as well to continue them in health (for that too much ease in hott countries is neither profitable nor healthfull), as also to divert them from remembrance of their home, and from play, which breedeth many inconveniences, and other bad thoughts and workes which idleness is cause of;[56] and so shifting my companie, as the custome is, into starboord and larboord men, the halfe to watch and worke whilest the others slept and take rest; I limited the three dayes of the weeke, which appertayned to each, to be imploied in this manner; the one for the use and clensing of their armes, the other for roomeging, making of sayles, nettings, decking,[57] and defences for our shippes; and the third, for clensing their bodies, mending and making their apparell, and necessaries, which though it came to be practised but once in seaven dayes, for that the Sabboth is ever to be reserved for God alone, with the ordinary obligation which each person had besides, was many times of force to be omitted. And thus wee entertained our time with a fayre wind, and in few dayes had sight of the land of Barbary, some dozen leagues to the northwards of Cape Blacke.
Before wee came to the Cape, wee tooke in our sayles, and made preparation of hookes and lines to fish. For in all that coast is great abundance of sundry kinds of fish, but especially of porgus, which we call breames; many Portingalls and Spaniards goe yearely thither to fish, as our country-men to the New-found-land, and within Cape Blacke have good harbour for reasonable shipping, where they dry their fish, paying a certaine easie tribute to the kings collector. In two houres wee tooke store of fish for that day and the next, but longer it would not keepe goode: and with this refreshing set sayle again, and Cape de Verd. directed our course betwixt the ilands of Cape de Verd and the Maine. These ilands are held to be scituate in one of the most unhealthiest climates of the world, and therefore it is wisedome to shunne the sight of them, how much more to make abode in them.
The unwholsomnesse thereof.
In two times that I have beene in them, either cost us the one halfe of our people, with fevers and fluxes of sundry kinds; some shaking, some burning, some partaking of both; some possesst with frensie, others with sloath, and in one of them it cost me six moneths sicknesse, with no small hazard of life; which I attribute to the distemperature of the ayre, for being within fourteene degrees of the equinoctiall lyne, the sunne hath great force all the yeare, and the more for that often they passe, two, three, and four yeares without rayne; and many times the earth burneth in that manner as a man well shodd, cannot endure to goe where the sunne shineth.
The heate.
With which extreame heate the bodie fatigated, greedily desireth refreshing, and longeth the comming of the The breze. breze, which is the north-east winde, that seldome fayleth in the after-noone at foure of the clocke, or sooner; which comming cold and fresh, and finding the poores of the body open, and (for the most part) naked, penetrateth the very bones, and so causeth sudden distemperature, and sundry manners of sicknesse, as the subjects are divers whereupon they worke.
Departing out of the calmes of the ilands, and comming into the fresh breeze, it causeth the like, and I have seene within two dayes after that we have partaked of the fresh ayre, of two thousand men, above a hundred and fiftie have beene crazed in their health.
The remedie.
The inhabitants of these ilands use a remedie for this, which at my first being amongst them, seemed unto me ridiculous; but since, time and experience hath taught to be grounded upon reason. And is, that upon their heads they weare a night-capp, upon it a montero,[58] and a hat over that, and on their bodies a sute of thicke cloth, and upon it a gowne, furred or lyned with cotton, or bayes, to defend them from the heate in that manner, as the inhabitants of cold countries, to guard themselves from the extreamitie of the colde. Which doubtlesse, is the best diligence that any man can use, and whosoever prooveth it, shall find himselfe lesse annoyed with the heate, then if he were thinly cloathed, for that where the cold ayre commeth, it peirceth not so subtilly.
The influence of the moone in hot countries.
The moone also in this climate, as in the coast of Guyne, and in all hott countries, hath forcible operation in the body of man; and therefore, as the plannet most prejudiciall to his health, is to be shunned; as also not to sleepe in the open ayre, or with any scuttle or window open, whereby the one or the other may enter to hurt.
For a person of credit told me, that one night, in a river of Guyne, leaving his window open in the side of his cabin, the moone shining upon his shoulder, left him with such an extraordinary paine and furious burning in it, as in above twentie houres, he was like to runne madde, but in fine, with force of medicines and cures, after long torment, he was eased.
Some I have heard say, and others write, that there is a starre which never seperateth it self from the moone, but a small distance; which is of all starres the most beneficiall to man.[59] For where this starre entreth with the moone, it maketh voyde her hurtfull enfluence, and where not, it is most perilous. Which, if it be so, is a notable secret of the divine Providence, and a speciall cause amongst infinite others, to move us to continuall thankesgiving; for that he hath so extraordinarily compassed and fenced us from infinite miseries, his most unworthie and ungratefull creatures.
Of these ilands are two pyles:[60] the one of them lyeth out of the way of trade, more westerly, and so little frequented; the other lyeth some fourscore leagues from the mayne, and containeth six in number, to wit: Saint Iago, Fuego, Mayo, Bonavisto, Sal, and Bravo.
They are belonging to the kingdome of Portingall, and inhabited by people of that nation, and are of great trade, by reason of the neighbour-hood they have with Guyne and Bynne;[61] but the principall is the buying and selling of negroes. They have store of sugar, salt, rice, cotton wool, and cotton-cloth, amber-greece, cyvit, oliphants teeth, brimstone, pummy stone, spunge, and some gold, but little, and that from the mayne.
Saint Iago.
Saint Iago is the head iland, and hath one citie and two townes, with their ports. The cittie called Saint Iago, whereof the iland hath his name, hath a garrison, and two fortes, scituated in the bottome of a pleasant valley, with a running streame of water passing through the middest of it, whether the rest of the ilands come for justice, being the seat of the Audiencia, with his bishop.
The other townes are Playa, some three leagues to the eastwards of Saint Iago, placed on high, with a goodly bay, whereof it hath his name; and Saint Domingo, a small towne within the land. They are on the souther part of the iland, and have beene sacked sundry times in anno 1582, by Manuel Serades, a Portingall, with a fleete Sacked by Manuel Serades, Sir Francis Drake, and Sir Anthony Shyrley. of French-men; in anno 1585, they were both burnt to the ground by the English, Sir Francis Drake being generall; and in anno 1596, Saint Iago was taken and sacked by the English, Sir Anthony Shyrley being generall.[62]
Fuego.
The second iland is Fuego; so called, for that day and night there burneth in it a vulcan, whose flames in the night are seene twentie leagues off in the sea. It is by nature fortified in that sort, as but by one way is any accesse, or entrance into it, and there cannot goe up above two men a brest. The bread which they spend in these ilands, is brought from Portingall and Spaine, saving that which they make of rice, or of mayes, which wee call Guynne-wheate.
Bravo.
The best watering is in the ile of Bravo, on the west part of the iland, where is a great river, but foule anchoring, as is in all these ilands, for the most part. The fruits are few, but substantiall, as palmitos, plantanos, patatos, and coco-nutts.
The Palmito.
The palmito is like to the date tree, and as I thinke a kinde of it, but wilde. In all parts of Afrique and America they are found, and in some parts of Europe, and in divers parts different. In Afrique, and in the West Indies they are small, that a man may cut them with a knife, and the lesser the better: but in Brazill, they are so great, that with difficultie a man can fell them with an axe, and the greater the better; one foote within the top is profitable, the rest is of no value; and that which is to be eaten is the pith, which in some is better, in some worse.[63]
The plantane.
The plantane is a tree found in most parts of Afrique and America, of which two leaves are sufficient to cover a man from top to toe. It beareth fruit but once, and then dryeth away, and out of his roote sprouteth up others, new. In the top of the tree is his fruit, which groweth in a great bunch, in the forme and fashion of puddings, in some more, in some lesse. I have seene in one bunch above foure hundred plantanes, which have weighed above fourescore pound waight. They are of divers proportions, some great, some lesser, some round, some square, some triangle, most ordinarily of a spanne long, with a thicke skinne, that peeleth easily from the meate; which is either white or yellow, and very tender like butter, but no conserve is better, nor of a more pleasing taste. For I never have seene any man to whom they have bred mis-like, or done hurt with eating much of them, as of other fruites.[64]
The best are those which ripen naturally on the tree, but in most partes they cut them off in braunches, and hange them up in their houses, and eate them as they ripe. For the birds and vermine presently in ripning on the tree, are feeding on them. The best that I have seene are in Brasill, Placentia. in an iland called Placentia, which are small, and round, and greene when they are ripe; whereas the others in ripning become yellow. Those of the West Indies and Guynne are great, and one of them sufficient to satisfie a man; the onely fault they have is, that they are windie. In some places they eate them in stead of bread, as in Panama, and other parts of Tierra Firme. They grow and prosper best when their rootes are ever covered with water; they are excellent in conserve, and good sodden in different manners, and dried on the tree, not inferior to suckett.[65]
The cocos, and their kindes.
The coco nutt is a fruit of the fashion of a hassell nutt, but that it is as bigge as an ordinary bowle, and some are greater. It hath two shells, the uttermost framed (as it were) of a multitude of threeds, one layd upon another, with a greene skinne over-lapping them, which is soft and thicke; the innermost is like to the shell of a hassell nutt in all proportion, saving that it is greater and thicker, and some more blacker. In the toppe of it is the forme of a munkies face, with two eyes, his nose, and a mouth. It containeth in it both meate and drinke; the meate white as milke, and like to that of the kernell of a nutt, and as good as almonds blancht, and of great quantitie: the water is cleare, as of the fountaine, and pleasing in taste, and somewhat answereth that of the water distilled of milke. Some say it hath a singular propertie in nature for conserving the smoothnesse of the skinne; and therefore in Spaine and Portingall, the curious dames doe ordinarily wash their faces and necks with it. If the holes of the shell be kept close, they keepe foure or six moneths good, and more; but if it be opened, and the water kept in the shell, in few dayes it turneth to vineger.
They grow upon high trees, which have no boughes; onely in the top they have a great cap of leaves, and under them groweth the fruite upon certaine twigs. And some affirme that they beare not fruite before they be above fortie yeares old, they are in all things like to the palme trees, and grow in many parts of Asia, Afrique, and America.[66] The shels of these nuts are much esteemed for drinking cups, and much cost and labour is bestowed upon them in carving, graving, and garnishing them, with silver, gold, and precious stones.
In the kingdome of Chile, and in Brasill, is another kinde of these, which they call coquillos, (as wee may interpret, little cocos) and are as big as wal-nuts; but round and smooth, and grow in great clusters; the trees in forme are all one, and the meate in the nut better, but they have no water.
Another kinde of great cocos groweth in the Andes of Peru, which have not the delicate meate nor drinke, which the others have, but within are full of almonds, which are placed as the graines in the pomegrannet, being three times bigger then those of Europe, and are much like them in tast.
Cyvet catts.
In these ilands are cyvet-cats, which are also found in parts of Asia, and Afrique; esteemed for the civet they yeelde, and carry about them in a cod in their hinder parts, which is taken from them by force.
Monkeyes.
In them also are store of monkies, and the best proportioned Parrots. that I have seene; and parrots, but of colour different to those of the West Indies; for they are of a russet or gray colour, and great speakers.