[Footnote 52:  Guatlan is the name of a bay on this coast, and which is probably corrupted in the text to Acatlan.—­E.]

On the 12th they arrived at the island of St Andrew, which is very full of wood, and where they found plenty of fowls and seals, together with a sort of serpents, or lizards rather, called Iguanos, having four feet and a long sharp tail, which they found good eating.  Leaving this isle, they came to the road of Mazatlan on the 24th, lying under the tropic of Cancer.  The river here is large within, but much obstructed by a bar at its mouth.  The bay abounds with fish, and there are abundance of good fruits up the country.  Departing from this bay on the 27th, they came to an island, a league north from Mazatlan,[53] where they heeled their ships, and rebuilt their pinnace.  On this isle, they found fresh water, by digging two or three feet into the sand, otherwise they must have gone back twenty or thirty leagues for water, being advised by one Flores, a Spanish prisoner, to dig in the sands, where no water or sign of any could be perceived.  Having amply supplied the ships with water, they remained at this island till the 9th October, and then sailed from Cape San Lucar, the S.W. point of California, in lat. 22 deg. 50’ N. which they fell in with on the 14th, observing that it much resembled the Needles at the Isle of Wight, which had been before noticed by Sir Francis Drake.  Within this cape, there is a large bay, called by the Spaniards Aguada Segura,[54] into which falls a fine fresh-water river, the banks of which are usually inhabited by many Indians in the summer.  They went into this bay, where they again watered, and remained waiting for the Accapulco ship till the 4th November, the wind continuing all that time to hang westerly.

[Footnote 53:  In our best modern maps no such island is to be found; but about the same distance to the S. is a cluster of small isles.—­E.]

[Footnote 54:  Probably that now called the bay of St Barnaby, about twenty miles E.N.E. from Cape San Lucar.—­E.]

The 4th November, putting to sea, the Desire and Content beat to and fro to windward off the head land of California; and that very morning one of the men in the admiral, going aloft to the topmast, espied a ship bearing in from seaward for the cape.  Putting every thing in readiness for action, Candish gave chase, and coming up with her in the afternoon, gave her a broadside and a volley of small arms.  This ship was the Santa Anna of 700 tons burden, belonging to the king of Spain, and commanded by the admiral of the South Sea.  Candish instantly boarded, finding the Spaniards in a good posture of defence, and was repulsed with the loss of two men slain and four or five wounded.  He then renewed the action with his cannon and musquetry, raking the St Ann, and killing or wounding great numbers, as she was full of men.  The Spaniards long defended themselves manfully; but the ship being sore wounded,