CANDISH'S CIRCUMNAVIGATION ad. 



1587. 

 selves, for they had erected a Gibet, whereon they had 

 done execution upon some of their company. It seemed 

 unto us that their whole living for a great space was 

 altogether upon muskles and lympits : for there was not 

 any thing else to bee had, except some Deere which 

 came out of the mountaines downe to the fresh rivers 

 to drinke. These Spaniards which were there, were 

 onely come to fortifie the Streights, to the ende that 

 no other nation should have passage through into the 

 South sea saving onely their owne : but as it appeared, 

 it was not Gods will so to have it. For during the God enemie to 

 time that they were there, which was two yeeres at the ^^^ Spaniards. 

 least, they could never have any thing to growe or in 

 any wise prosper. And on the other side the Indians 

 oftentimes preyed upon them, untill their victuals grewe 

 so short, (their store being spent which they had brought 

 with them out of Spaine, and having no meanes to 

 renew the same) that they dyed like dogges in their 

 houses, and in their clothes, wherein we found them still 

 at our comming, untill that in the ende the towne being 

 wonderfully taynted with the smell and the savour of 

 the dead people, the rest which remayned alive were 

 driven to burie such things as they had there in their 

 towne either for provision or for furniture, and so to 

 forsake the towne, and to goe along the sea-side, and 

 seeke their victuals to preserve them from sterving, 

 taking nothing with them-, but every man his harque- 

 buze and his furniture that was able to cary it (for some 

 were not able to cary them for weakenesse) and so lived 

 for the space of a yeere and more with rootes, leaves, 

 and sometimes a foule which they might kill with their 

 peece. To conclude, they were determined to have 

 travailed towards the river of Plate, only being left alive 

 23. persons, whereof two were women, which were the 

 remainder of 4. hundred. In this place we watered and 

 woodded well and quietly. Our Generall named this 

 towne Port famine: it standeth in 53. degrees by obser- Port famine 

 vation to the Southward. in s^ degrees. 



299 



