They Are To Be Had Ripe All The Year Round, But There Is One
Season In Which They Are Best And Fittest For Keeping, Which Was Past
Before The Dutch Arrived, And The Oranges Were Then Mostly Over Ripe And
Beginning To Rot.
The island also produces lemons, and has plenty of
oxen, cows, goats, and hogs, which the negroes bartered for salt.
On the
S.E. part of the island there is a good watering-place, but difficult to
find, which is commanded by a stone breast-work, whence the negroes
might greatly annoy any who attempted to water by force. They grow here
some cotton, which is sent to Portugal. The natives are treacherous, and
require to be cautiously dealt with.
The fleet left Annobon on the 4th November, and on the 6th January,
1624, they were in lat. 44 deg. 40' S. where they saw many sea-gulls, and
much herbage floating on the water, whence they supposed themselves near
the continent of South America. On the 19th the sea appeared as red as
blood, proceeding from an infinite quantity of a small species of
shrimps. On the 28th they lost sight of their bark, in which were
eighteen men, three of them Portuguese. These people, as they afterwards
learnt, having in vain endeavoured to rejoin the fleet, determined to
return to Holland. Being in want of water, they sailed up the Rio de la
Plata till they came into fresh water, after which they continued their
voyage, suffering incredible hardships, and the utmost extremity of
want, till they arrived on the coast of England, where they ran their
vessel on shore to escape a privateer belonging to Dunkirk, and
afterward got back to Holland.
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