proceeded to the
westward, going out of their course for several miles in order to
overhaul a Spanish barque. They "imagined she had some gold or treasure
going for Spain," but on search in her hold they could find only sugar
and hides. They, therefore, let her go, and stood off again for the
secret harbour. The next day they took some five or six small frigates,
bound from Santiago de Tolu to Cartagena, with ladings of "live hogs,
hens, and maize, which we call Guinea wheat." They examined the crews of
these ships for news "of their preparations for us," and then dismissed
them, reserving only two of the half-dozen prizes "because they were so
well stored with good victuals." Three days later they arrived at the
hidden anchorage, which Drake called Port Plenty, because of abundance
of "good victuals" that they took while lying there. Provision ships
were passing continually, either to Nombre de Dios or Cartagena, with
food for the citizens or for the victualling of the plate fleets. "So
that if we had been two thousand, yea, three thousand, persons, we might
with our pinnaces easily have provided them sufficient victuals of wine,
meal, rusk, cassavi (a kind of bread made of a root called Yucca, whose
juice is poison, but the substance good and wholesome), dried beef,
dried fish, live sheep, live hogs, abundance of hens, besides the
infinite store of dainty fresh fish, very easily to be taken every day."
So much food was taken, that the company, under the direction of Diego,
the negro, were forced to build "four several magazines or storehouses,
some ten, some twenty leagues asunder," on the Main, or on the islands
near it, for its storage. They intended to stay upon the coast until
their voyage was "made," and, therefore, needed magazines of the kind
for the future plenishing of their lazarettoes. We read that Diego, the
negro, was of special service to them in the building of these houses,
for, like all the Maroons, he was extremely skilful at the craft. They
were probably huts of mud and wattle, thatched with palm leaves, "with a
Sort of Door made of Macaw-Wood, and Bamboes." From these magazines
Drake relieved two French ships "in extreme want"; while his men and
their allies the Cimmeroons lived at free quarters all the time they
stayed there.

While the Captain had been cruising up the Magdalena, his brother, John
Drake, had been westward along the coast with Diego, "the Negro
aforesaid," in his pinnace. Diego had