rained,
and has both the colour and taste of milk, and will even throw up a
thick head not unlike cream. This milk, when boiled with rice, is
accounted very wholesome and nourishing by the doctors, and was given to
our sick men. When the nut is very old, the kernel of itself turns to
oil, which is often used to fry with, but mostly for burning in lamps.
The outer end of the nuts may be applied to the purposes of flax, and of
it the natives make a kind of linen, and it is also manufactured into
ropes and cables, which are sold in most parts of America and the West
Indies. The shell of this nut makes very pretty drinking cups, and it
also burns well, making a fierce hot fire. Thus the cocoa-tree affords
meat, drink, oil, clothing, houses, firing, and rigging for ships.

The _plantain-tree_ is only about thirteen or fourteen feet high and
four feet round, its leaves being eight or nine feet long and two broad,
ending in a round point. The fruit grows at the bottom of the leaves, on
a great stalk, in a pod about eight inches long and the size of a black
pudding, being of a fine yellow colour, often speckled with red. The
inside of this is white, but the plantain itself is yellow like butter,
and as soft as a pear. There sometimes grow fifty or sixty of these pods
on one stalk, and five or six stalks on one tree. They are an excellent
fruit, and most parts of the East and West Indies abound with them. The
_banana_ tree is much the same with the plantain, but the fruit is only
about six inches long, fifty or sixty of them growing on one stalk, and
is extraordinarily mellow, sweet, and good.

We left the bay of Atacames on the 31st July, accompanied by our prize
the Dragon, and passing the Bay of Panama, came to the Bay of Nicoya on
the 16th August, in lat 9 deg. 30'N. in which we anchored near certain
islands near the centre of the bay, called Middle Islands, where we
careened. While here, Mr Clippington, the chief mate, having quarrelled
with Captain Dampier, drew over twenty-one men to his party, and making
himself master of the bark, in which was all our ammunition and the best
part of our provisions, hoisted anchor, and went without the islands,
whence he sent us word that he would put ashore at an Indian house all
our powder, shot, and other ammunition, reserving only what was
necessary for his own use, which he did accordingly, and we sent our
canoes to fetch it on board.

These islands in the Bay of Nicoya are extrem