From Porto Bello The Armada Weighs Always On The Thirtieth
Day, But The Admiral Will Sometimes Stay A Week Longer At The Mouth Of
The River, To Oblige The Merchants.
It then returns to Carthagena, where
it meets the king's money from that part of the country, as also a large
Spanish galleon or patache, which, on the first arrival of the armada at
Carthagena, had been dispatched along the coast to collect the royal
treasure.
The armada, after a set stay at Carthagena, sails for the
Havannah, where a small squadron called the flota meets it from Vera
Cruz, bringing the riches of Mexico, and the rich goods brought by the
annual ship from Manilla. When all the ships are joined, they sail for
Spain through the gulf of Florida.
Porto Bello is a very unhealthy place, on which account the merchants of
Lima stay there as short time as possible. Panama is seated in a much
better air, enjoying the sea-breeze every day from ten or eleven in the
forenoon till eight or nine at night, when the land-breeze begins, and
blows till next morning. Besides, on the land side Panama has an open
champaign country, and is seldom troubled with fogs; neither is the
rainy season, which continues from May till November, nearly so
excessive as at Porto Bello, though severe enough in June, July, and
August, in which season the merchants of Peru, who are accustomed to a
constant serene air, without rains or fogs, are obliged to cut off their
hair, to preserve them from fevers during their stay.
The 21st February, near the Perico islands opposite to Panama, we took
another prize from Lavelia, laden with beeves, hogs, fowls, and salt.
The 24th we went to the isle of Taboga, six leagues south of Panama.
This island is three miles long and two broad, being very rocky and
steep all round, except on the north side, where the shore has an easy
dope. In the middle of the isle the soil is black and rich, where
abundance of plantains and bananas are produced, and near the sea there
are cocoa and mammee trees. These are large and straight in their
stems, without knots, boughs, or branches, and sixty or seventy feet
high. At the top there are many small branches set close together,
bearing round fruit about the size of a large quince, covered with a
grey rind, which is brittle before the fruit is ripe, but grows yellow
when the fruit comes to maturity, and is then easily peeled off. The
ripe fruit is also yellow, resembling a carrot in its flesh, and both
smells and tastes well, having two rough flat kernels in the middle,
about the size of large almonds. The S.W. side of this isle is covered
with trees, affording abundant fuel, and the N. side has a fine stream
of good water, which falls from the mountains into the sea. Near this
there was formerly a pretty town with a handsome church, but it has been
mostly destroyed by the privateers.
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