We spread ourselves over the country far and wide; and here we shot hares and wild-fowl again in abundance, the country being much the same as before, but something more bushy, and here and there a few trees, but they were a great way off. There is a large river which empties itself into this bay.
Finding no news here of our men, I ordered the Madagascar ship to weigh and stand farther north, keeping as near the shore as he might with safety, and causing his men to look out for the signals, which, if they discovered, they should give us notice by firing three guns.
They sailed the height of Cape Blanco, where the land falling back, makes a deep bay, and the sea receives into it a great river at several mouths, some of them twenty leagues from the other, all farther north. Here they stood into the bay until they made the land again; for at the first opening of the bay they could not see the bottom of it, the land lying very low.
The captain was doubtful what he should do upon the appearance of so large a bay, and was loath to stand farther in, lest the land, pushing out into the sea again afterwards, and a gale springing up from the seaward, they might be shut into a bay where they had no knowledge of the ground; and upon this caution, they resolved among themselves to come to an anchor for that evening, and to put farther out to sea the next morning.
Accordingly the next morning he weighed and stood off to sea; but the weather being very fine, and the little wind that blew being south-west-by-south, he ventured to stand in for the shore, where he found two or three small creeks, and one large river; and sending in his shallop to sound, and find out a good place to ride in, upon their making the signal to him that they had found such a place, he stood in, and came to an anchor in eleven fathom good ground, half a league from the shore, and well defended from the northerly and easterly winds, which were the winds we had any reason to fear.
Having thus brought his ship to an anchor, he sent his shallop along the shore to give me an account of it, and desire me to come up to him, which accordingly we did; and here we resolved to ride for some time, in hopes to hear from our little army.
We went on shore, some or other of us, every day, and especially when five of our men, going on shore on the north side of the river, had shot three Peruvian sheep and a black wild bull; for after that they ranged the country far and near to find more, but could never come within shot of them, except three bulls and a cow, which they killed after a long and tedious chase.
We lay here till the 16th of February, without any news of our travellers, as I called them. All the hopes we had was, that five of our men asking my leave to travel, swore to me they would go quite up to the Andes but they would find them; nay, they would go to the Spanish gentleman himself, if they did not hear of them; and obliged me to stay twenty days for them, and no longer. This I readily promised, and giving them everything they asked, and two Peruvian sheep to carry their ammunition, with two dozen of rockets for signals, a speaking trumpet, and a good perspective glass, away they went; and from them we had yet heard no news, so that was our present hope.
They travelled, as they afterwards gave an account, one hundred and twenty miles up the country, till they were at last forced to resolve to kill one of their guinacoes, or sheep, to satisfy their hunger, which was a great grief to them, for their luggage was heavy to carry; but, I say, they only resolved on it, for just as they were going to do it, one of them roused a deer with a fawn, and, by great good luck shot them both; for, having killed the doe, the fawn stood still by her till he had loaded his piece again, and shot that also.
This supplied them for four or five days plentifully, and the last day one of my men being by the bank of the river (for they kept as near the river as they could, in hopes to hear of them that way), saw something black come driving down the stream; he could not reach it, but calling one of his fellows, their curiosity was such, that the other, being a good swimmer, stripped and put off to it, and, when he came to it, he found it was a man's hat; this made them conclude their fellows were not far off, and that they were coming by water.