rs during their stay.

The 21st February, near the Perico islands opposite to Panama, we took
another prize from Lavelia, laden with beeves, hogs, fowls, and salt.
The 24th we went to the isle of Taboga, six leagues south of Panama.
This island is three miles long and two broad, being very rocky and
steep all round, except on the north side, where the shore has an easy
dope. In the middle of the isle the soil is black and rich, where
abundance of plantains and bananas are produced, and near the sea there
are cocoa and _mammee_ trees. These are large and straight in their
stems, without knots, boughs, or branches, and sixty or seventy feet
high. At the top there are many small branches set close together,
bearing round fruit about the size of a large quince, covered with a
grey rind, which is brittle before the fruit is ripe, but grows yellow
when the fruit comes to maturity, and is then easily peeled off. The
ripe fruit is also yellow, resembling a carrot in its flesh, and both
smells and tastes well, having two rough flat kernels in the middle,
about the size of large almonds. The S.W. side of this isle is covered
with trees, affording abundant fuel, and the N. side has a fine stream
of good water, which falls from the mountains into the sea. Near this
there was formerly a pretty town with a handsome church, but it has been
mostly destroyed by the privateers. There is good anchorage opposite
this town a mile from the shore, in sixteen to eighteen fathoms on soft
ooze. At the N.N.W. end is a small town called _Tabogilla_, and on the
N.E. of this another small town or village without a name.

While at anchor near _Tabogilla_, we were in great danger from a
pretended merchant, who brought a bark to us in the night, under
pretence of being laden with merchandise to trade with us privately, but
which was in reality a fire-ship fitted out for our destruction. But on
her approach, some of our men hailed her to come to anchor, and even
fired upon her, which so terrified the men that they got into their
canoes, having first set her on fire, on which we cut our cables and got
out of her way. This fire-ship was constructed and managed by one Bond,
who formerly deserted from us to the Spaniards. While busied next
morning in recovering our anchors, we discovered a whole fleet of canoes
full of men, passing between Tabogilla and another isle. These proved to
be French and English buccaneers, lately come from the North Sea across
th