for the climate. The sides of the mountains are part woodland and
part savannahs, well stocked with wild goats descended from those left
here by Juan Fernandez in his voyage from Lima to Valdivia. Seals swarm
as thick about this island as though they had no other place to live in,
for there is not a bay nor rock that one can get ashore on but is full
of them. They are as big as calves, the head of them like a dog,
therefore called by the Dutch sea-hounds. Here are always thousands--I
might say millions--of them sitting on the bays, or going and coming in
the sea round the island. When they come out of the sea they bleat like
sheep for their young, and though they pass through hundreds of other
young ones before they come to their own, yet they will not suffer any
of them to suck. A blow on the nose soon kills them. Large ships might
here load themselves with sealskins and train-oil, for they are
extraordinary fat.

Our passage lay now along the Pacific Sea. We made the best of our way
towards the line, and fell in with the mainland of South America. The
land is of a most prodigious height. It lies generally in ridges
parallel to the shore, three or four ridges one within another, each
surpassing the other in height. They always appear blue when seen at
sea; sometimes they are obscured with clouds, but not so often as the
high lands in other parts of the world--for there are seldom or never
any rains on these hills, nor are they subject to fogs. These are the
highest mountains that ever I saw, far surpassing the peak of Teneriffe,
or Santa Marta, and, I believe, any mountains in the world.

_IV.--More Buccaneering Exploits_

On May 3 we descried a sail. Captain Eaton, being ahead, soon took her;
she was laden with timber. Near the island of Lobos we chased and caught
three sail, all laden with flour. In the biggest was a letter from the
viceroy of Lima to the president of Panama, assuring him there were
enemies in that sea, for which reason he had despatched this flour, and
desiring him to be frugal of it, for he knew not when he should send
more. In this ship were likewise seven or eight tons of marmalade of
quinces, and a stately mule sent to the president, and a very large
image of the Virgin Mary in wood, carved and painted, to adorn a new
church at Panama. She brought also from Lima 800,000 pieces of eight to
carry with her to Panama; but while she lay at Huanchaco, taking in her
lading of flour, the merchants,