range sight he met with. He was also blessed with the pen
of a ready writer. So we get a story that is more vivacious than
Hakluyt's retelling of the first voyage or Hawkins's own account of the
third. Sparke saw for the first time in his life negroes, Caribs,
Indians, alligators, flying-fish, flamingoes, pelicans, and many other
strange sights. Having been told that Florida was full of unicorns he at
once concluded that it must also be full of lions; for how could the one
kind exist without the other kind to balance it? Sparke was a soldier
who never found his sea legs. But his diary, besides its other merits,
is particularly interesting as being the first account of America ever
written by an English eyewitness.

Hawkins made for Teneriffe in the Canaries, off the west of Africa.
There, to everybody's great 'amaze,' the Spaniards 'appeared levelling
of bases [small portable cannon] and arquebuses, with divers others, to
the number of fourscore, with halberds, pikes, swords, and targets.' But
when it was found that Hawkins had been taken for a privateer, and when
it is remembered that four hundred privateering vessels--English and
Huguenot--had captured seven hundred Spanish prizes during the previous
summer of 1563, there was and is less cause for 'amaze.' Once
explanations had been made, 'Peter de Ponte gave Master Hawkins as
gentle entertainment as if he had been his own brother.' Peter was a
trader with a great eye for the main chance.

Sparke was lost in wonder over the famous Arbol Santo tree of Ferro, 'by
the dropping whereof the inhabitants and cattle are satisfied with
water, for other water they have none on the island.' This is not quite
the traveller's tale it appears to be. There are three springs on the
island of Teneriffe. But water is scarce, and the Arbol Santo, a sort of
gigantic laurel standing alone on a rocky ledge, did actually supply two
cisterns, one for men and the other for cattle. The morning mist
condensing on the innumerable smooth leaves ran off and was caught in
suitable conduits.

In Africa Hawkins took many 'Sapies which do inhabit about Rio Grande
[now the Jeba River] which do jag their flesh, both legs, arms, and
bodies as workmanlike as a jerkin-maker with us pinketh a jerkin.' It is
a nice question whether these Sapies gained or lost by becoming slaves
to white men; for they were already slaves to black conquerors who used
them as meat with the vegetables they forced them to raise