s certainly
terrible. The Hilo, or Ylo people, some weeks later, said that seventy
Spaniards had been killed and about 200 wounded.

All the next day the pirates "plied to and fro in sight of the port,"
hoping that the Spaniards would man the ships in the bay, and come out
to fight. They reinstated Sharp in his command, for they had now
"recollected a better Temper," though none of them, it seems, wished for
any longer stay in the South Sea. The Arica fight had sickened them of
the South Sea, while several of them (including Ringrose) became very
ill from the exposure and toil of the battle. They beat to windward,
cruising, when they found that the Spaniards would not put to sea to
fight them. They met with dirty weather when they had reached the
thirtieth parallel, and the foul weather, and their bad fortune made
them resolve to leave those seas. At a fo'c's'le council held on the 3rd
of March, they determined to put the helm up, and to return to the North
Sea. They were short of water and short of food, "having only one cake
of bread a day," or perhaps half-a-pound of "doughboy," for their
"whack" or allowance. After a few days' running before the wind they
came to "the port of Guasco," now Huasco, between Coquimbo and Caldera,
a little town of sixty or eighty houses, with copper smeltries, a
church, a river, and some sheep-runs. Sixty of the buccaneers went
ashore here, that same evening, to get provisions, "and anything else
that we could purchase." They passed the night in the church, or "in a
churchyard," and in the morning took "120 sheep and fourscore goats,"
about 200 bushels of corn "ready ground," some fowls, a fat hog, any
quantity of fruit, peas, beans, etc., and a small stock of wine. These
goods they conveyed aboard as being "fit for our Turn." The inhabitants
had removed their gold and silver while the ship came to her anchor, "so
that our booty here, besides provisions, was inconsiderable." They found
the fat hog "very like our English pork," thereby illustrating the
futility of travel; and so sailed away again "to seek greater matters."
Before they left, they contrived to fill their water jars in the river,
a piece of work which they found troublesome, owing to the height of the
banks.

[Illustration: _A Description of_ Hilo]

From Huasco, where the famous white raisins grow, they sailed to Ylo,
where they heard of their mates at Arica, and secured some wine, figs,
sugar, and molasses, and some "fru