than 30,000 _carguas_ yearly, and sometimes double that quantity, a
_cargua_ being eighty-one pounds weight, which only costs here two
dollars and a half. They have also a considerable trade in salt and
salt-fish, from Cape St Helena, which is mostly sent to Quito and other
places of the inland country. It exports also a vast quantity of timber
to Truxilo, Chana, Lima, and other places, where it is scarce. They
export also from hence rice and cotton, with some dried or jerked beef.
This province has no mines of gold or silver, but abounds in all sorts
of cattle, which are very cheap, especially on the island of Puna, where
we amply supplied ourselves. Their only grain is maiz, so that all their
wheat flour is brought from Truxilo, Cherisse, and other places to
windward, or to the south, as the wind blows here always from the south.
They procure several kinds of woollen cloth, among which, are very
strong and good bags, from Quito. Their wines, brandy, olives, oil, and
sugar, come from Piscola, Nasca, and other places to windward. All kinds
of European goods are brought from Panama, being brought there overland
from Portobello on the Gulf of Mexico; and the trade of this port is so
considerable as to employ forty sail every year, besides coasters. A
market is also held daily on bark logs, or boats, every day, on the
river before the town, containing every thing afforded by the interior
country in great plenty.

The other towns in the province are governed by lieutenants, or
deputies, appointed by the corregidore. Above half of these towns border
on the same river or its branches, so that their inhabitants can all
come to the capital in two tides, though some are many leagues distant.
_Porto Vaco_ was formerly the capital. In the whole province, the
Spaniards reckon 10,000 inhabitants, but I believe there are many more,
including all the mixed races between Spaniards, Indians, and negroes,
which they divide and subdivide into eleven denominations. Few of the
prisoners who fell into our hands were healthy or sound, and nearly half
of the native Spaniards applied to our doctors for remedies against the
French disease, which is so common here that it is reckoned no scandal.

On the 11th May, with a strong gale at S.S.W. we bore away for the
Gallepagos islands, being in a very sad condition; for we had upwards of
twenty men ill in the Duke, and near fifty in the Duchess, seized with a
malignant fever, contracted, as I suppose