claim to larger shares: the two ships therefore, though designing alike to cruise on the coast of Peru, sailed singly and separately, Eaton on the 22d, and Davis on the day following.
Point Sta Elena. Davis went to Point Sta Elena. On its West side is deep water and no anchorage. In the bay on the North side of the Point is good anchorage, and about a mile within the Point was a small Indian village, the inhabitants of which carried on a trade with pitch, and salt made there. The Point Sta Elena is tolerably high, and overgrown with thistles; but the land near it is sandy, low, and in parts overflowed, without tree or grass, and without fresh water; but water-melons grew there, large and very sweet. When the inhabitants of the village wanted fresh water, they were obliged to fetch it from a river called the Colanche, which is at the innermost part of the bay, four leagues distant from their habitations. The buccaneers landed, and took some natives prisoners. A small bark was lying in the bay at anchor, the crew of which set fire to and abandoned her; but the buccaneers boarded her in time to extinguish the fire. A general order had been given by the Viceroy of Peru to all ship-masters, that if they should be in danger of being taken by pirates, they should set fire to their vessels and betake themselves to their boats.
Algatrane, a bituminous Earth. The pitch, which was the principal commodity produced at Sta Elena, was supplied from a hot spring, of which Dampier gives the following account. 'Not far from the Indian village, and about five paces within high-water mark, a bituminous matter boils out of a little hole in the earth. It is like thin tar; the Spaniards call it Algatrane. By much boiling, it becomes hard like pitch, and is used by the Spaniards instead of pitch. It boils up most at high water, and the inhabitants save it in jars[44].'
A rich Ship formerly wrecked on Point Sta Elena. A report was current here among the Spaniards, 'that many
years before, a rich Spanish ship was driven ashore at Point Sta Elena, for want of wind to work her; that immediately after she struck, she heeled off to seaward, and sunk in seven or eight fathoms water; and that no one ever attempted to fish for her, because there falls in here a great high sea[45].'
Manta. Davis landed at a village named Manta, on the main-land about three leagues Eastward of Cape San Lorenzo, and due North of a high conical mountain called Monte Christo. The village was on a small ascent, and between it and the sea was a spring of good water. Sunken Rocks near it. 'About a mile and a half from the shore, right opposite the village, is a rock which is very dangerous, because it never appears above water, neither does the sea break upon it. A mile within the rock is good anchorage in six, eight or ten fathoms, hard sand and clear ground. And Shoal. A mile from the road on the West side is a shoal which runs out a mile into the sea[46].'
The only booty made by landing at Manta, was the taking two old women prisoners. From them however, the Buccaneers obtained intelligence that many of their fraternity had lately crossed the Isthmus from the West Indies, and were at this time on the South Sea, without ships, cruising about in canoes; and that it was on this account the Viceroy had given orders for the destruction of the goats at the Island Plata.
October. Davis is joined by other Buccaneers. Whilst Davis and his men, in the Batchelor's Delight, were lying at the Island Plata, unsettled in their plans by the news they had received, they were, on October the 2d, joined by the Cygnet, Captain Swan, and by a small bark manned with a crew of buccaneers, both of which anchored in the road.
The Cygnet, Captain Swan. The Cygnet, as before noticed, was fitted out from London for the purpose of trade. She had put in at Baldivia, where
Swan, seeing the Spaniards suspicious of the visits of strangers, gave out that he was bound to the East Indies, and that he had endeavoured to go by the Cape of Good Hope; but that meeting there with storms and unfavourable winds, and not being able to beat round that Cape, he had changed his course and ran for the Strait of Magalhanes, to sail by the Pacific Ocean to India. This story was too improbable to gain credit. Instead of finding a market at Baldivia, the Spaniards there treated him and his people as enemies, by which he lost two men and had several wounded. He afterwards tried the disposition of the Spaniards to trade with him at other places, both in Chili and Peru, but no where met encouragement. He proceeded Northward for New Spain still with the same view; but near the Gulf of Nicoya he fell in with some buccaneers who had come over the Isthmus and were in canoes; and his men (Dampier says) forced him to receive them into his ship, and he was afterwards prevailed on to join in their pursuits. Swan had to plead in his excuse, the hostility of the Spaniards towards him at Baldivia. These buccaneers with whom Swan associated, had for their commander Peter Harris, a nephew of the Peter Harris who was killed in battle with the Spaniards in the Bay of Panama, in 1680, when the Buccaneers were commanded by Sawkins and Coxon. Swan stipulated with them that ten shares of every prize should be set apart for the benefit of his owners, and articles to that purport were drawn up and signed. Swan retained the command of the Cygnet, with a crew increased by a number of the new comers, for whose accommodation a large quantity of bulky goods belonging to the merchants was thrown into the sea. Harris with others of the buccaneers established themselves in a small bark they had taken.