262 LOSS OF A JAMAICA SLOOP. 
the family. I am ready to think most people will believe I 
did not waDt sauce to them, having eaten nothing all the day. 
The next day we went a fishing again, having the day before 
had enough of hunting; we caught about fourteen or sixteen 
small fishes, which made a good meal for the family ; we ate 
them boiled, and the sauce to them was the water they were 
boiled in : our bread was either roasted plantains or cassave 
roots, and little enough of them. 
"Within about a mile and a half from us there lived two or 
three families of Indians : one of them coming to our habita- 
tion, inquired after my padrone, and wl>en we expected him 
to return; and withal, asked me how we did for provisions. 
I told him we fared hard enough. He said if they had known 
that we had been in want of food they v\'ould have supplied 
us, and desired me to lend him a gun, v/hich I did ; he went 
over the river, and in about an hour returned with a large fawn, 
which was soon dressed, half a side of it broiled and in our 
bellies. The Indians w^ere so kind as to bring us something 
or other to eat every day, so that we did not want for food any 
mxore. In about ten days my padrone returned from Plantain 
River, whom I was very glad to see. He excused himself for 
staying so long, telling me the people of Plantain River w^ould 
not let him come away sooner. I recounted to him my adven- 
ture in the woods, which he only laughed at. The next day 
he went a hunting, and furnished us with more provisions. 
In his leisure hours he used to entertain me with stories of 
his travels, and the hardships he had met with in being seve- 
ral times made a prisoner by the Spaniards, both in Mexico 
and Peru. He had been a prisoner a long time at St. Juan 
d'Uloa, vv^hich is a large and strong fort, vrith more than twen- 
ty pieces of brass cannon. It is built upon an island, which 
makes the fort of Levera Cruz, where there is a large fair 
town ; it is situated at the bottom of the bay of Mexico, and 
is the barricade for that kingdom. The city of Mexico is 
eighty leagues from thence, in the land ; this city, I have been 
credibly informed by a Spanish merchant who lived there, is 
one-third part as big as London, and that there are six thou- 
sand coaches in it. My padrone had also been prisoner at the 
Havana, on the island of Cuba, and has often told me how 
both that place and the Levera Cruz might be surprised by 
the English; and recounted to me how a number of bucca- 
neers surprised, took, and plundered the latter. The buccaneers 
having mustered all their strength, resolved upon sacking the 
town ; and being arrived within sixteen or eighteen miles of it, 
