, although he might have presently twenty times as much!"
Which they took as proceeding not only from kindness, but also from
magnanimity; and therefore, they marched forth, that afternoon, with
great good will.

This was the order of our march. Four of those Cimaroons that best knew
the ways, went about a mile distance before us, breaking boughs as they
went, to be a direction to those that followed; but with great silence,
which they also required us to keep.

Then twelve of them were as it were our Vanguard, other twelve, our
Rearward. We with their two Captains in the midst.

All the way was through woods very cool and pleasant, by reason of
those goodly and high trees, that grow there so thick, that it is cooler
travelling there under them in that hot region, than it is in the most
parts of England in the summer time. This gave a special encouragement
unto us all, that we understood there was a great Tree about the midway,
from which, we might at once discern the North Sea from whence we came,
and the South Sea whither we were going.

The fourth day following (11th February) we came to the height of
the desired hill, a very high hill, lying East and West, like a ridge
between the two seas, about ten of the clock: where [PEDRO] the chiefest
of these Cimaroons took our Captain by the hand, and prayed him to
follow him, if he was desirous to see at once the two seas, which he had
so long longed for.

Here was that goodly and great high Tree, in which they had cut and made
divers steps, to ascend up near unto the top, where they had also made
a convenient bower, wherein ten or twelve men might easily sit: and from
thence we might, without any difficulty, plainly see the Atlantic Ocean
whence now we came, and the South Atlantic [i.e., Pacific Ocean] so much
desired. South and north of this Tree, they had felled certain trees,
that the prospect might be the clearer; and near about the Tree there
were divers strong houses, that had been built long before, as well
by other Cimaroons as by these, which usually pass that way, as being
inhabited in divers places in those waste countries.

After our Captain had ascended to this bower, with the chief Cimaroon,
and having, as it pleased God, at that time, by reason of the brize
[breeze], a very fair day, had seen that sea, of which he had heard such
golden reports: he "besought Almighty God of His goodness, to give him
life and leave to sail once in an English ship, in tha