are supplied with provisions by sea, this being the first place at which
ships refresh, when bound from Panama to Lima and other parts of Peru.
They have an excellent spring of fresh water between the village and the
sea. Opposite to this village, and a mile and a half from the shore,
there is a very dangerous rock, being always covered by the sea; but
about a mile within this rock there is safe anchorage, in six, eight,
and ten fathoms, on hard clear sand; and a mile west from this, a shoal
runs a mile out to sea. Behind the town, and directly to the south, a
good way inland, there is a very high mountain rising up into the
clouds, like a sugar-loaf; which serves as an excellent sea-mark, there
being no other like it on all this coast. [161]

[Footnote 161: The great Chimborazo is probably here meant, about 135
English miles inland from Manta, and almost due east, instead of south,
as in the test.--E]

Our men landed about day-break, a mile and a half from the village, but
the inhabitants took the alarm, and got all away, except two old women,
from whom we learnt that the viceroy, on receiving intelligence of
enemies having come across the isthmus of Darien into the South Sea, had
ordered all their ships to be set on fire, all the goats in the isle of
Plata to be destroyed, and that the inhabitants on the coast should keep
no more provisions than were necessary for their present use.

We returned to our ship at Plata, where we remained for some time
unresolved what course to pursue. On the 2d of October, the Cygnet of
London, Captain Swan, came to anchor in the same road. This was a
richly-loaded ship, designed for trading on this coast, but being
disappointed in his hopes of trade, his men had forced Captain Swan to
take on board a company of buccaneers he fell in with at Nicoya, being