on each side with gardens, having fine groves of oranges, cedars, pomegranates, several sorts of figs, and the cocoa-nut palm, which has been long planted on this island.  It produces all kinds of vegetables in great abundance and perfection; but they do not afford good seeds, so that it is necessary to procure these every year from Europe.  The city is on the south coast of the island, and is well built of stone, being inhabited by about 500 families of distinction, Portuguese and Castilians.  Its government is entrusted to a corregidor or governor, appointed by the king of Portugal; and two judges are chosen annually, one for the determination of naval and maritime causes, and the other for regulating the police.  This island is very mountainous, and is very barren in many parts, which are entirely destitute of wood; but its vallies are fertile and well cultivated.  In June, when the sun enters Cancer, the rains are so incessant that the Portuguese call that month La Luna de las Aquas, or the Water Month.  Their seed-time begins in August, when they sow maize, called miglio zaburo.  This is a white bean, which is ready to be gathered in forty days, and is the chief food of these islanders, and of all the inhabitants of the coast of Africa[4].  They also sow much rice and cotton; the latter of which comes to great perfection, and is manufactured into striped cloths, which are exported to the country of the Negroes, and bartered for black slaves.

To give a distinct view of the commercial transactions with the Negroes, it is proper to inform you, that the western coast of Africa is divided into several countries and provinces, as Guinea, Melegote[5], the kingdom of Benin, and the kingdom of Manicongo.  Over all this extent of coast, there are many Negro kings or chiefs, whose subjects are Mahometans and idolaters, and who are continually at war with each other.  These kings are much respected by their subjects, almost to adoration, as they are believed to have originally descended from heaven.  When the king of Benin dies, his subjects assemble in an extensive plain, in the centre of which a vast pit or sepulchre is dug, into which the body is lowered, and all the friends and servants of the deceased are sacrificed and thrown into the same grave, thus voluntarily throwing away their own lives in honour of the dead.  On this coast there grows a species of melegete, extremely pungent like pepper, and resembling the Italian grain called sorgo.  It produces likewise a species of pepper of great strength, not inferior to any of that which the Portuguese bring from Calicut, under the name of Pimienta del rabo, or Pepe dalla coda, and which African pepper resembles cubbebs, but so powerful that an ounce will go farther than a pound of the common sort; but its exportation is prohibited, lest it should injure the sale of that which is brought from Calicut[6].  There is also established on this coast a manufacture