nly three quarters of a mile distant.

The island of Quibo is extremely convenient for wooding and watering,
for the trees grow close to the high-water mark, and a large rapid
stream of fresh water runs over the sandy beach into the sea; so that
we were little more than two days in laying in all the wood and water
we wanted. The whole island is of a very moderate height, excepting
one part. It consists of a continued wood spread over the whole
surface of the country, which preserves its verdure all the year
round. We found there abundance of cassia, and a few lime-trees.
It appeared singular to us, that, considering the climate and the
shelter, we should see no other birds there than parrots, parroquets,
and mackaws; of the last there were prodigious flights. Next to these
birds, the animals we found in most plenty were monkeys and guanos,
and these we frequently killed for food; for though there were many
herds of deer upon the place, yet the difficulty of penetrating the
woods prevented our coming near them, so that though we saw them
often, we killed only two during our stay. Our prisoners assured us
that this island abounded with tygers; we did once discover the print
of a tyger's paw upon the beach, but the tygers themselves we never
saw. The Spaniards, too, informed us that there was often found in the
woods a most mischievous serpent, called the Flying Snake, which they
said darted itself from the boughs of trees on either man or beast
that came within its reach, and whose sting they believed to be
inevitable death. Besides these mischievous land-animals, the
sea hereabouts is infested with great numbers of alligators of an
extraordinary size; and we often observed a large kind of flat fish
jumping a considerable height out of the water, which we supposed to
be the fish that is said frequently to destroy the pearl-divers, by
clasping them in its fins as they rise from the bottom; and we were
told that the divers, for their security, are now always armed with a
sharp knife, which, when they are entangled, they stick into the belly
of the fish, and thereby disengage themselves from its embraces.

Whilst the ship continued here at anchor, the commodore, attended by
some of his officers, went in a boat to examine a bay which lay to
the northward; and afterwards ranged all along the eastern side of
the island. In the places where they put on shore in the course of his
expedition, they generally found the soil to be e