After continuing here five or six days, they resolved to go to the island of St Jago, in hopes of meeting some ship in the road, intending to cut her cable and run away with her.  They accordingly stood for the east part of that island, where they saw from the top-mast head, over a point of land, a ship at anchor in the road, which seemed fit for their purpose:  but, by the time they had got near her, her company clapped a spring upon her cable, struck her ports, and run out her lower tier of guns, on which Cooke bore away as fast as he could.  This was a narrow escape, as they afterwards learnt that this ship was a Dutch East Indiaman of 50 guns and 400 men.

This is by far the best of the Cape de Verd islands, four or five leagues west from Mayo; and, though mountainous, is the best peopled, having a very good harbour on its east side, much frequented by ships bound from Europe for the East Indies and the coast of Guinea, as also by Portuguese ships bound to Brazil, which come here to provide themselves with beef, pork, goats, fowls, eggs, plantains, and cocoa-nuts, in exchange for shirts, drawers, handkerchiefs, hats, waistcoats, breeches, and all sorts of linen, which are in great request among the natives, who are much addicted to theft.  There is here a fort on the top of a hill, which commands the harbour.  This island has two towns of some size, and produces the same sort of wine with St Nicholas.

There are two other islands, Fogo and Brava, both small, and to the west of St Jago.  Fogo is remarkable, as being an entire burning mountain, from the top of which issues a fire which may be seen a great way off at sea in the night.  This island has a few inhabitants, who live on the sea-coast at the foot of the mountain, and subsist on goats, fowls, plantains, and cocoa-nuts.  The other islands of this group are St Antonio, St Lucia, St Vincent, and Bona Vista.

They sailed thence for the coast of Guinea, and, being near Cape Sierra Leona, they fell in with a new-built ship of forty guns, well furnished with water, all kinds of provisions, and brandy, which they boarded and carried away.[148]

[Footnote 148:  They appear to have named this ship the Revenge, and to have destroyed their original vessel.—­E.]

From thence they went to Sherbro river, also on the coast of Guinea, where they trimmed all their empty casks and filled them with water, not intending to stop any where again for water till their arrival at Juan Fernandez in the South Sea.  There was at this time an English factory in the Sherbro river, having a considerable trade in Cam-wood, which is used in dying red; but the adventurers do not appear to have had any intercourse with their countrymen at this place.  They were well received, however, by the negro inhabitants of a considerable village on the sea-shore, near the mouth of this river, who entertained Cowley and his companions with palm-wine, in a large hut in the middle of the town, all the rest of the habitations being small low huts.  These negroes also brought off considerable supplies to the ship, of rice, fowls, honey, and sugar canes, which they sold to the buccaneers for goods found in the vessel they had seized at Sierra Leona.