this rich prize was chiefly owing to Captain Townley, who insisted on taking the Lima ship in the harbour of Acapulco, when we ought to have provided ourselves with beef and maize, as we might then have done, instead of being now forced to procure provisions at the critical time of her coming on the coast.  We were likewise deceived by the hope of falling in with rich towns and mines on this coast, not then knowing that all the wealth of this country is in the interior.  Seeing that we were now entirely disappointed in our hopes, we parted company, Captain Townley going back to the S.E. while we in Captain Swan’s ship went to the west.

The 7th January we passed point Pontique in lat. 20 deg. 38’ N. ten leagues from Cape Corientes, being the N.W. point of this bay of the valley of Valderas.  A league beyond this point to the W. there are two little isles called the Pontiques, and beyond these to the north the shore is rugged for eighteen leagues.  The 14th we came to anchor in a channel between the continent and a small white rocky isle, in lat. 21 deg. 15’.  The 20th we anchored a league short of the isles of Chametly, different from those formerly mentioned under the same name, being six small isles in lat 28 deg. 11’ N. three leagues from the continent.[185] One or two of these isles have some sandy creeks, and they produce a certain fruit called penguins.  These are of two sorts, one red and the other yellow.  The plant producing the latter is as thick in the stem as a man’s arm, with leaves six inches long and an inch broad, edged with prickles.  The fruit grows in clusters at the top of the stem, being round and as large as an egg, having a thick rind, inclosing a pulp full of black seeds, of a delightful taste.  The red penguin grows directly out of the ground, without any stalk, sometimes sixty or seventy in a cluster, no bigger than onions, but the shape of nine-pins, the cluster being surrounded with prickly leaves eighteen inches or two feet long.

[Footnote 185:  In modern maps these are called the isles of Mazatlan, and are placed in lat. 28 deg. 15’ N. The name given in the text appears taken from a town on this coast called Charmela, in lat 22 deg. 50’ N. but improperly.—­E.]

Captain Swan went with 100 men in canoes to the north, to find out the river Culiacan, supposed to be in lat. 24 deg.  N.[186] and said to have a fair and rich town of the same name on its banks; but after rowing thirty leagues he could not find the river, neither was there any safe landing place on the coast.  Seven leagues N.N.W. from the Chametla or Mazatlan isles, our men landed in a small lake or river, having a narrow entrance, called Rio de Sal by the Spaniards, in lat. 23 deg. 30’ N.[187] They here procured some maize at an adjacent farm; and learnt at another landing place of an Indian town five leagues distant, to which they marched.  Coming near the place we were encountered by a good number of Spaniards and Indians, who were soon beat off.  On entering the place we only found two or three wounded Indians, who told us the town was named Mazatlan, and that there were two rich gold-mines at the distance of five leagues.