20 THE GEOLOGY OF BERMUDA. 
being twelue leagues in length, and sixe in breadth, and about thirtie 
in circuit, lying in the three and thirtieth degree of the North side. 
While I remayned here, I saw a strife and combat betweene these fly- 
ing-fishes, and the fishes named giltheads, and the fowles called sea 
mewes, and cormorants, which surely seemed unto one a thing of as 
great pleasure and solace as could be deuised.” 
On this passage, General Lefroy comments as follows:* ‘The terms 
of this narrative imply a stay of some slight duration, which is to be 
inferred also from the approximation with which the dimensions of 
the group are fixed; and it is very unlikely that none of the party 
landed. * * * Itis probable that the purpose he was prevented 
from fulfilling was that of landing hogs, not that of communicating 
with the shore.” It seems to me, on the contrary, a more likely infer- 
ence from the language of Oviedo, that he was altogether prevented 
from landing. It would not require a sojourn on land to witness a fight 
between flying-fishes and cormorants—the only incident which he refers 
to in connection with his visit to the islands. Certainly every circum- 
stance indicates that Oviedo’s estimate of the size of the archipelago 
must be taken as merely a rough guess, and no inference can be drawn 
from the slight excess of that estimate over the present actual dimen- 
sions. 
The chief evidence relied upon by General Lefroy to support the 
belief of a subsidence within historic times is the testimony of Henry 
May, an English sailor in a French vessel, who was shipwrecked on the 
islands in December, 1593, and remained there until April, 1594., The 
statements in May’s narrative bearing upon the subject in question are 
as follows: ‘‘We made account at the first that we were cast away 
hard by the shore, being hie cliffs, but we found ourselues seuen 
leagues off, but with our boat and a raft, which we had made and towed 
at our boats sterne, we were saued some 26 of us. * * * Werowed 
all the day until an hour or two before night yer we could come on 
land, towing the raft with the boat. * * * This island is diuided 
all into broken islands; and the greatest part I was upon, which might 
be some four or five miles long, and two miles and a halfe ouer, being 
all woods, as cedar and other timber, but cedar is the chiefest.” 
General Lefroy adds to this narrative the following comments: “There 
* On. cit., Vol. 1., p. 3. 
tHaklnyt’s Collection of the early Voyages, Travels, and Discoveries, of the 
English Nation. New edition, with additions. 5 vols. London, 1809-12. Vol. IV., 
pp. 55, 56. May’s narrative is quoted in Lefroy, op. cit., Vol. I., pp. 7-9. 
tOp. cit., pp. 9, 10. 
