230 
PORTER’S JOURNAL. 
tains or craters of extinguished volcanoes, strongly resembling 
each other, you may proceed for about three miles without expe¬ 
riencing much inconvenience, except from the intense heat of the 
sun (from which there is nothing to screen you but a few wither¬ 
ed dwarf-trees, destitute of leaves), and from occasionally falling 
into the holes made by the guanas in the loose cinders, heated 
by the sun’s rays, as well as from occasionally encountering in 
your route beds of sharp lava, about as agreeable to walk on as 
a hackle ; and to those who are bare-footed, or whose shoes are 
not remarkably good, and provided with thick soles, this transition 
from hot to sharp and from sharp to hot is equally desirable, for 
either of the evils is so great that they cannot be long borne at a 
time, and of the two it is difficult to say which is the least. On 
my return to the beach, however, from my excursion, I discover¬ 
ed beauties that had before escaped my notice. A verdant man¬ 
grove, which had shot its branches into the sand, formed an ar¬ 
bour which afforded an agreeable shade ; and after supplying 
©urselves with seats from the stones in the neighbourhood, Mr. 
Adams and myself made a hearty meal from the tortoises, cray¬ 
fish, crabs, See., which had been procured in the vicinity, for which 
our promenade in the delightful grove of captain Colnet had not a 
little contributed to prepare us to relish*. We met with great 
numbers of English mocking-birds, hawks resembling the fab 
* At every place where we landed on the western side, we might have 
walked for miles through long grass and beneath groves of trees. It only 
wanted a stream to compose a very charming landscape. This isle appears 
to have been a favourite resort of the buccaniers, as we not only found seats, 
which had been made by them of earth and stone, but a considerable num¬ 
ber of broken jars scattered about, and some entirely whole, in which the 
Peruvian wine and liquors of that country are preserved. We also found 
some old daggers, nails, and other implements. This place is, in every re¬ 
spect, calculated for refreshment pr relief for crews, after a long and tedi¬ 
ous voyage, as it abounds with wood, and good anchorage for any number 
of ships, and sheltered from all winds by Albemarle Isle. The watering- 
place of the buccaniers was entirely dried up, and there was only found a 
small rivulet between two hills, running into the sea ; the northernmost 
hill forms the south point of Fresh-Water Bay. 
Colnet* s Journal, page 156- 
