We Resolved Therefore To Return That
Way, Making Short Trips All Night, And Continually Sounding, For Fear Of
Shoals, Having From Forty To Sixty Fathoms.
The 18th and 19th we saw
several more islands, one of them very large, which we supposed to be
near the equator.
At noon of the 19th we had an observation, making our
latitude 2 deg. 2' N. We saw in all at least fifty islands, some of which we
searched, and others we viewed from a distance, but none had the least
appearance of fresh water.[228] Signior Morel told me that a Spanish
man-of-war had been to an island in lat. 1 deg. 20' or 30' S. 140 Spanish
leagues west from the island of Plata, and to which they gave the name
of Santa Maria del Aguada, a pleasant island with a good road, full of
wood, and having plenty of water, with turtle and sea-tortoises in
abundance. This I believe to have been the same island in which Davis
the buccaneer recruited; and all the light he has left by which to find
it again, is, that it is to the west of the islands he was at with the
other buccaneers, which must be those we were twice at. We had no
occasion to look out for this island on the present trip, though I
believe it might easily have been found without farther directions. In
these islands there are many kinds of sea-fowl, and some land-birds,
particularly hawks and turtle-doves, both so very tame that we often
knocked them down with sticks.
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