144 A VOYAGE TO Book IV. 



tude and latitude, that they might afcertain the place 

 where the equator cuts this coait, examine the length 

 of the pendulum, and make other oblervations equally 

 important. Accordingly proper inftruments were leit 

 with them. 



On the 13th of the fame month of March, our vef- 

 fel put to fea, keeping along the coafr, and palled the 

 next day within the ifland de la Plata. The i5lh we 

 began to lofe light both of Cape St. Lorenzo, and alfa 

 of the ifland ; at one in the afternoon we lleered S. S. E. 

 till the 17th, when we difcovered Cape Blanco, the 

 fouth point of the bay of Guayaquil. From Cape 

 Blanco \vc coañcd along the bay, till, about noon on 

 the iSth, coming to the mouth of the river Tumbez, 

 we anchored about half a league from the land; the 

 river's mouth bearing E. ¿ degrees nortberly, and the 

 ifland of Sania Clara, commonly called Amortajado, 

 or Muerto, from its referabhng the figure of a human 

 corpfe, N. 4 deg. eaflcrly, in fourteen fathom water, 

 and a muddy bottom. 



Some particular affairs of the captain O'f the ihrp 

 obliged us to remain here till the 20th, when, at fix in 

 the morning, we weighed; and at half an hour after fix 

 in the evening, the flrength of the current on the ebb 

 obliged us to come to an anchor. Thus we continued 

 anchoring every ebb, and failing during the flood. 

 And here we found that the current always fets out of 

 the bay, though with much lets velocity on the flood 

 than on the ebb ; for we obferved thai the tide never 

 altered its direction in 19 hours and a half. The caufe 

 of this phenomenon is fuppolcd to be, the pro- 

 digious quantity of water dií'charged into it by the 

 rivers. On the 2jd, having come to an anchor off 

 Punta de Arenas m the ifland of Puna, we font on 

 fhore for a pilot to carry in our fhip ; .for, though the 

 diflance was only ie^tn leagues, the great number 

 of fhallows in this fhort palfaoc rendered a precau- 

 tion of this kind prudent, if not abfolutely iiecef- 



fary» 



