The 6th, Captain Pinkerton and the Snow came in from St. Thomas, with old Captain Alison along with them for a Pilot. On the 8th we left this place, and on the 17th made Nostra Signiora della Popa, we lay aside there along the Coast, until the 3d Day of November, generally losing by Night what we had gain'd all Day.
Crab Island is about 6 Leagues long, and in some places 5 broad, the Soil is very good. It's all full of Trees; all the South side is full of Bays, very fit for anchoring in, but the best of all is to the Leeward, where the Dane hoised his Colours. It would have been worth our while to possess it, had we not been a coming to a better Country. It has this Inconvenience, that nothing but strength of Men, or Peace with every Body, can render it secure. It is called Crab Island, from the multitude of Land-Crabs there.
November 3. We anchored before Golden Island, and sent in our Pinnace to the Bay. The Natives had hoised a White Flag in sign of Peace, and told us a great many Stories of Captain Swan, Captain Davies, and others, for they took us for English, by reason of our red Fly; but we took no notice of the Men they nam'd. At last they ask'd us our Business? we told them we designed to settle among them, and to be their Friends. They told us we were very welcome, and that by prediction they had expected us these two Years; for they say that two Years ago it was foretold them that a People should come and live among them, that would treat them civilly, and teach them good manners. We conversed some time with them, and after viewing the Harbour came aboard.
The 4th we came into the great Harbour of Caledonia: It is a most excellent one, for it is about a League in length from N. W. to S. E. It is about half a Mile broad at the Mouth, and in some places a Mile and more farther in. It is large enough to contain 500 sail of Ships. The greatest part of it is Land-lock'd, so that it is safe, and cannot be toucht by any Wind that can blow the Harbour, and the Sea makes the Land that lies betwixt them a Peninsula. There is a Point of the Peninsula at the Mouth of the Harbour, that may be fortified against a Navy. This Point secures the Harbour, so that no Ship can enter but must be within reach of their Guns. It likewise defends half of the Peninsula, for no Guns from the other side of the Harbour can touch it, and no Ship carrying Guns dare enter for the Breast-work at the Point. The other side of the Peninsula is either a Precipice, or defended against Ships by Shoals and Breaches, so that there remains only the narrow Neck that is not naturally fortify'd; and if 30 Leagues of a Wilderness will not do that, it may be artificially fortified 20 ways. In short, it may be made impregnable, and there is Bounds enough within it, if it were all cultivated, to afford 10000 Hogsheads of Sugar every Year. The Soil is rich, the Air good and temperate, the Water is sweet, and every thing contributes to make it healthful and convenient. The Product of this Place, I mean in the Harbour and Creeks hereabouts, is Turtle, Manatee, and a vast variety of very good small Fish, from the bigness of a Salmon to that of a Perch. The Land affords Monkeys of different sorts, Wild-Deer, Indian Rabbit, Wild Hog, Parrots of many kinds, Parakites, Macaws, Pelicans, and a hundred more Birds we have got no name to. There are moreover Land-Crabs, Souldiers, Land-Turtle, Lizards, Guanha's, Cock-Lizards, and Scorpions: I had almost forgot Partridges, Pheasants, and a kind of Turkey. All the Birds in this Country are beautiful, but none of them that I could observe have any Notes. We have a Monkey aboard that chirms like a Lark, it will never be bigger than a Rat. This Place affords legions of monstrous Plants, enough to confound all the Methods of Botany ever hitherto thought upon. However, I found a shift to make some Specimens, and that is all I can do. I say some Specimens, because if I should gather all, 'twould be enough to load the St. Andrew, for some of their Leaves exceed three Ells in length, and are very broad; besides these Monsters, reducible to no Tribe, there are here a great many of the European kindred, (but still something odd about them) as Lingua Cervina of different kinds, Filix of different kinds, Polypodium, several of the Plantæ Papilonaceæ, Musci, Fungi, Convolvuli, and a great many more I cannot now remember. Now come we to their People. The Men are generally very Civil and Sagacious, have all of them good Faces, are of low stature, but very well built; they are of a Copper Colour, and have black Hair; they us'd to go naked, but are now as well Cloath'd as our selves; they wear a Plate of Gold in their Nose, and a great many rows of Beads about their Neck and Wrists. They cover their Yard with a piece of Bark, or sometimes Silver, of the very shape and bigness of that Paper-case we use to put a dose of Pills in; they seem to be very ill furnish'd, for I never saw any of them have it half an Inch long, yet no doubt it's longer, but I fancy they sheath it up, as Dogs and Horses do. The Women are generally the most pitiful like things that ever Man saw; their Habit differs from the Men, for they ordinarily wear a Ring in their Nose; they have Petticoats and a Veil over their Face. They are under no formal Government, but every Captain commands his own River, Bay or Island, where he lives; the greatest of them all is one Captain Ambrosio, he commands particularly the Country about the Samballoes Point, but when he pleases he can Levy all the Men betwixt that and the Gulf about 20 Leagues. There is another Captain Pedro, that lives in the House with Ambrosio, and is his Nephew and Son in Law; there is a 3d Captain Andreas that commands the River Das armas; a 4th Captain Brandy, that commands about the Golden Island; a 5th Captain Andreas, that commands the Country adjoining to our Settlement; and a 6th Captain Pedro his Consort; a 7th Captain Pacigo, who commands at Carret Bay, and Captain Diego that commands the Gulph. Ambrosio seems to be the greatest, and Diego next, both old Men; they are all very much our Friends, and fond of us. All have been frequently here except Captain Diego who is Goutish. Some of these Captains wear the Scots Flag in their Canoa's. There is no such thing as a King or Emperor of Darien, nor, so far as we can gather from all the chief Men hereabout, has been these 40 or 50 Years: The old Men remember such a Man, they say he was a Tyrant, would take as many Wives as he pleased, and allow them but one, and therefore they cut him off. This derogates much from the reputation of the History of the Buccaneers. If there were such a Man, he has been an Indian made Emperor by themselves, I mean by the Buccaneers. This Country certainly affords Gold enough, for besides that the Natives constantly assure us, that they know several Gold Mines on this side; besides that, I say, the Plates they wear in their Noses, and the quantity of Gold that is among them, is enough to perswade any Man of the truth of it. There was one Night aboard here some Indians that had a hundred Ounces of Gold about them. We are certainly much bound to Providence in this affair; for as we were searching for the place we were directed to, we found this, and though the Privateers had been so often at Golden Island, and though English, Dutch and French had been all over this Coast, from Portobelo to Cartegena, yet never one of them made the discovery; even the Spaniards themselves never knew of this place. Besides, for as great a secret as we thought the Project, it was known all the West Indies over, and yet it was not in their power to crush it. At Madera they seem'd to know it, at St. Thomas I'm sure they knew it; at Portobelo their Intelligence was so good, that they knew the names of all our Councellors and Captains of Ships before we landed, and had that particular observation, that there were four Roberts among them. Our circumstances are in some Respects very good, for we have advice by the way of Portobelo, that there is a great Rebellion in Mexico, and Captain Diego and all the Indians about him are at present at War with the Spaniards. Captain Ambrosio is going to his assistance, and that will divert them on that side; but which is better than all, that we are now in a posture of defence against all the Spanish force in America. I have seen already Dutch, French, and English all at the same time in our Harbour, and all of them wonder what the rest of the World have been thinking on, when we came hither to the best Harbour of America, in the best place of it. Captain Long came in eight days after, and I believe we were a great Eye-sore to him, tho' he said nothing. He commanded the Rupert Prize, a small English Man of War, fitted out by the King, upon what design we know not, but he pretends it was to search for a Silver Wreck; he was on this coast a Month before sounding it; and conversing with the Natives, he put ashore Men in some places, to take possession for the King of Great Britain, but none of them within 15 Leagues of us. Hearing by the Natives that we were here, he came in with his Long-Boat, as he said to see us, but I believe it was only to know the certainty of what he feared was too true. He had told all the Indian Captains that he came only to try their inclinations, and that there was a great Fleet coming with a great many People to settle among them, and defend them against their enemies, he meant English that were to come by his direction; but our Fleet coming within a Month after, they all lookt upon us to be the People he spoke of; so that whatever Presents he made them before that time, was as much for our Advantage as if our selves had given them. He pretends to be a Conjurer, and to foretel things; but that was the truest Prophecy ever he spoke, though he knew not whom he spoke of.
A DISCOURSE tending to prove at what Time and Place, Julius Cesar made his first Descent upon Britain: Read before the Royal Society by E. Halley.
Though Chronological and Historical Matters, may not seem so properly the Subject of these Tracts, yet there having, in one of the late Meetings of the Royal Society, been some Discourse about the Place where Julius Cesar Landed in Britain, and it having been required of me to shew the Reason why I concluded it to have been in the Downs; in doing thereof, I have had the good Fortune so far to please those worthy Patrons of Learning I have the Honour to serve, that they thought fit to command it to be inserted in the Philosophical Transactions, as an instance of the great Use of Astronomical Computation for fixing and ascertaining the Times of memorable Actions, when omitted or not duly delivered by the Historian.
1. The Authors that mention this Expedition with any Circumstances, are Cæsar in his Commentaries lib. 4, and Dion Cassius in lib. 39; Livy's account being lost, in whose 105th. Book might possibly have been found the Story more at large. It is certain that this Expedition of Cæsars, was in the Year of the Consulate of Pompey and Crassus, which was in the Year of Rome 699. or the 55th before the usual Æra of Christ: And as to the time of the Year, Cæsar says that Exigua parte æstatis reliqua, he came over only with two Legions, viz. the 7th and 10th and all Foot, in about 80 Sail of Merchant Ships, 18 Sail that were ordered to carry the Horse not being able to get out at the same time from another Port, where they lay Wind-bound. He says that he arrived about the 4th hour of the Day, viz. between Nine and Ten in the Morning, on the Coast of Britain, where he found the Enemy drawn up on the Cliffs ready to repel him, which place he thus describes. Loci hæc erat natura, adeo montibus augustis mare continebatur ut ex locis superioribus in littus telum adjicit possit, by which the Cliffs of Dover and the South Foreland are justly described, and could be no other Land, being he says in the 5th Book of his Commentaries, in Britanniam trajectum esse cognoverit circitur millium passum triginta à continenti, the Cliffs of the North-Foreland being at a much greater distance. Here he says he came to an Anchor, and staid till the 9th hour, or till about between Three and Four in the Afternoon, expecting till his whole Fleet was come up; and in the mean time called a Council of War, and advertised his Officers, after what manner they were to make their Descent, particularly in relation to the Stuff of the Sea, whose motion he calls celerem atq. instabilem, quick and uneven. Then, viz. about Three in the Afternoon he weighed Anchor, and having gotten the Wind and Tide with him, he Sail'd about Eight Miles from the first place, and Anchor'd against an open and plain Shore.
2. Here he made his Descent, and having told us the opposition that was made, and the means he used to get on Shore, he comes to say, that after he had been Four Days in Britain, the 18 Ships with his Horse put to Sea, and were come in sight of his Camp, when a suddain Tempest arose, with contrary Wind, so that some of the Ships put back again, others were driven to the Westwards, not without great danger, and coming to Anchor, they found they could not ride it out: so when Night came on, they put off to Sea and returned from whence they came. That same Night it was Full-Moon, which makes the greatest Tides in the Ocean, and they being ignorant thereof, their Gallies, which were drawn on Shore, were filled by the Tide, &c.