10' N.
long. 105 deg. 56' W. and the N.W. point of the N. island is in lat. 21 deg. 40'
N. long. 106 deg. 26' W. the distance from each being about two marine
leagues. These islands have abundance of parrots of different sorts,
with pigeons and other land-birds, of which we killed great numbers.
There were also many excellent hares, but much smaller than ours. We saw
likewise abundance of guanas, and some racoons, which barked and snarled
at us like dogs, but were easily beaten off with sticks. The water is
more worthy of remark than any other thing we saw here, as we only found
two good springs, which ran in large streams; the others being bitter
and disagreeable, proceeding, as I suppose, from being impregnated by
shrubs or roots growing in the water, or from some mineral.
The turtle we found here are of a different sort from any I had ever
seen, though very good. Though it is ordinarily believed that there are
only three sorts of sea-turtles, yet we have seen six or seven sorts at
different times, and our people have eaten of them all, except the very
large whooping or loggerhead kind, which are found in great plenty
in Brazil, some of them above 500 pounds weight. We did not eat of
these, because at that time our provisions were plentiful. At the
Gallapagos, both males and females were observed to come on shore only
in the day time, quite different from what I had heard of them at other
places; whereas all we caught here were by turning them over in the
night, when the females come on shore to lay their eggs and bury them in
the dry sand.
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