The next day, finding a convenient place, they remained for a month; refitting the ships and resting the crews, obtaining an abundance of fish and other provisions such as they required; fresh water, however, being absent.
Sailing along, they came to Iquique and, landing here, they lighted upon a Spaniard who lay asleep, and had lying by him thirteen bars of silver. Thinking it cruel to awaken him, they removed the money, and allowed him to take his sleep out in security. Continuing their search for water they landed again, and near the shore met a Spaniard, with an Indian boy, driving eight "Peruvian sheep," as the chronicler calls them; these being, of course, the llamas, which were used as beasts of burden. Each sheep bore two leathern bags, in each of which was fifty pounds weight of refined silver. The chronicler says:
"We could not endure to see a gentleman Spaniard turned carrier so; and therefore, without entreaty, we offered our services, and became drivers; only his directions were not so perfect that we could keep the way which he intended, for almost as soon as he was parted from us we, with our new kind of carriages, were come unto our boats."
Beyond this Cape lay certain Indian towns, and with the natives of these, who came out on frail rafts, they trafficked knives, beads, and glasses, for dried fish. Here they saw more of the llamas, which are described at great length by the historians of the expedition; who considered, and rightly, that they were extraordinary and most useful animals. If however this assertion, that upon one of their backs "did sit at one time three well-grown and tall men, and one boy" be true, they must have been considerably larger in those days than at present.
It was but a few days later that they arrived at Arica, at which place also they gleaned considerable booty, and thence proceeded to Lima, which they reached seven days after leaving Arica.
After their long voyage out to sea they again bore north, and reached the land at the Bay of San Francisco. Here they complained bitterly of the cold; which is not a little singular, inasmuch as the time of the year was June, a period at which the heat at San Francisco is, at present, excessive. It must be assumed, therefore, that some altogether exceptional season prevailed during this portion of the voyage.
Here they were well north of the Spanish possessions, and fell among a people who knew nothing of the white man. A native in a canoe speedily came out to the ship, as soon as she cast anchor; and, standing at a long distance, made delivery of a very prolix oration, with many gestures and signs, moving his hand, turning and twisting his head and body, and ending with a great show of reverence and submission. He returned to shore. Again, and for a third time, he came out and went through the same ceremony; after which he brought a little basket of rushes, filled with an herb which is called there tambac, which he threw into the boat. Then he again returned to shore.
The people came out, many of them in boats, but would not approach the vessel; and upon the third day the vessel, having received a leak at sea, was brought to anchor nearer the shore, and preparations were made to land her stores.
[Chapter 18]: San Francisco Bay.
After his experience of the treachery of the native, the admiral determined to build a fort to protect the party on shore. The people, seeing these preparations, appeared in large numbers and approached, but their attitude expressed astonishment rather than hostility. They then, laying down their arms, gathered round the little party of white men; but as they brought their women with them, the admiral concluded that no hostility was intended, and allowed them freely to mix with the whites. Their attitude and deportment showed that they looked upon them as gods, paying worship in the most abject manner. In order to show them that his men were but human, the admiral ordered them to eat and drink, that the people might observe that they were but men, as they. Even this failed to convince them and, during the whole time that they remained there, they were treated as being creatures of celestial origin.