ens, ducks, geese;
the 2 last sorts I only saw at the Dutch fort, of the other sort there
are not many but among the Portuguese: the woods abound with bees, which
make much honey and wax.

ITS FISH. COCKLE MERCHANTS AND OYSTERS. COCKLES AS BIG AS A MAN'S HEAD.

The sea is very well stocked with fish of divers sorts, namely mullet,
bass, bream, snook, mackerel, parracoots, garfish, ten-pounders,
scuttle-fish, stingrays, whiprays, rasperages, cockle-merchants, or
oyster-crackers, cavallies, conger-eels, rock-fish, dog-fish, etc. The
rays are so plentiful that I never drew the seine but I caught some of
them; which we salted and dried. I caught one whose tail was 13 foot
long. The cockle-merchants are shaped like cavallies, and about their
bigness. They feed on shellfish, having 2 very hard, thick, flat bones in
their throat, with which they break in pieces the shells of the fish they
swallow. We always find a great many shells in their maws, crushed in
pieces. The shellfish are oysters of 3 sorts, namely long-oysters, common
oysters, growing upon rocks in great abundance and very flat; and another
sort of large oysters, fat and crooked; the shell of this not easily to
be distinguished from a stone. Three or four of these roasted will
suffice a man for one meal. Cockles, as big as a man's head; of which 2
or 3 are enough for a meal; they are very fat and sweet. Crawfish,
shrimps, etc. Here are also many green-turtle, some alligators and
grandpisces, etc.

ITS ORIGINAL NATIVES DESCRIBED.

The original natives of this island are Indians, they are of a middle
stature, straight-bodied, slender-limbed, long-visaged; their hair black
and lank; their skins very swarthy. They are very dexterous and nimble,
but withal lazy in the high degree. They are said to be dull in
everything but treachery and barbarity. Their houses are but low and
mean, their clothing only a small cloth about their middle; but some of
them for ornament have frontlets of mother-of-pearl, or thin pieces of
silver or gold, made of an oval form of the breadth of a crown-piece,
curiously notched round the edges; five of these placed one by another a
little above the eyebrows making a sufficient guard and ornament for
their forehead. They are so thin and placed on their foreheads so
artificially that they seem reverted thereon: and indeed the pearl-oyster
shells make a more splendid show than either silver or gold. Others of
them have palmetto-caps made in div