ft most sluttishly, and were every day almost
melted with heat in rowing and marching, and suddenly wet again with
great showers, and did eat of all sorts of corrupt fruits, and made
meals of fresh fish without seasoning, of tortugas, of lagartos or
crocodiles, and of all sorts good and bad, without either order or
measure, and besides lodged in the open air every night, we lost not any
one, nor had one ill-disposed to my knowledge; nor found any calentura
or other of those pestilent diseases which dwell in all hot regions, and
so near the equinoctial line.

Where there is store of gold it is in effect needless to remember other
commodities for trade. But it hath, towards the south part of the river,
great quantities of brazil-wood, and divers berries that dye a most
perfect crimson and carnation; and for painting, all France, Italy, or
the East Indies yield none such. For the more the skin is washed, the
fairer the colour appeareth, and with which even those brown and
tawny women spot themselves and colour their cheeks. All places yield
abundance of cotton, of silk, of balsamum, and of those kinds most
excellent and never known in Europe, of all sorts of gums, of Indian
pepper; and what else the countries may afford within the land we know
not, neither had we time to abide the trial and search. The soil besides
is so excellent and so full of rivers, as it will carry sugar, ginger,
and all those other commodities which the West Indies have.

The navigation is short, for it may be sailed with an ordinary wind
in six weeks, and in the like time back again; and by the way neither
lee-shore, enemies' coast, rocks, nor sands. All which in the voyages to
the West Indies and all other places we are subject unto; as the channel
of Bahama, coming from the West Indies, cannot well be passed in the
winter, and when it is at the best, it is a perilous and a fearful
place; the rest of the Indies for calms and diseases very troublesome,
and the sea about the Bermudas a hellish sea for thunder, lightning, and
storms.

This very year (1595) there were seventeen sail of Spanish ships lost
in the channel of Bahama, and the great Philip, like to have sunk at the
Bermudas, was put back to St. Juan de Puerto Rico; and so it falleth out
in that navigation every year for the most part. Which in this voyage
are not to be feared; for the time of year to leave England is best
in July, and the summer in Guiana is in October, November, December,