piece of cloth as a signal for us to come in, on which we rowed into an excellent bay to eastward of the cliff on which the town stands, and on getting fairly into the bay we let drop our grapnel.  After remaining some time, a boat or canoe came off to us and one of the men in her shewed us a piece of gold about half a crown weight, requiring us to give them our measure and weight that they might shew them to their captain.  We accordingly gave them a measure of two ells, and a weight of two angels, as the principles on which we meant to deal.  He took these on shore to their captain; and then brought us back a measure of two ells one quarter and a half, and one crusado weight of gold, making signs that they would give so much weight of gold for that measure of cloth and no more; but this we refused.  After staying about an hour, and finding that they would not deal on our principles, besides understanding that the best places for trade were all before us, we returned to our ships, weighed anchor, and stood along shore, going before in the boat.

[Footnote 242:  This was probably Fort St Antonio, at the mouth of the river Aximer or Ashim.—­Astl.  I. 155. a.]

[Footnote 243:  St Johns river is about 12 leagues E.N.E. of Cape Three-points, nearly in lat. 5 deg.  N. long 2 deg. 10’ W.—­E.]

Having sailed about a league, we came to a point of land having a long ledge of rocks running out from it to seawards like the others; and on passing the ledge our master noticed a place which he said was assuredly the town of Don John[244].  As the night approached we could not see it very distinctly, wherefore we came to anchor as near as possible.  On the morning of the 5th it was recognized to be the town we wanted, wherefore we manned our boats and went towards the shore; but knowing that the Portuguese had taken away a man from that place the year before, and had afterwards shot at them with great bases[245], driving them from the place, we let go our grapnel almost a base shot from shore, and lay there near two hours without any boat coming off to us.  At this time some of our men who had gone in the Hinds boat into the bay to the eastward of the town, where they found a fine fresh river, waved to us to join them, because the negroes were seen coming down to that place, which we did.  Immediately afterwards the negroes came down to the shore, and gave us to know by signs that they had gold, but none of them would come to our boats, neither indeed did we see that they had any canoes to come in, so that we suspected the Portuguese had spoiled their boats, as we saw half their town in ruins.  Wherefore, having tarried a good while, and seeing that they did not come to us, and as we were well armed, we run the heads of both boats on shore.  Upon this the captain of the town came towards us with his dart in his hand, followed by six tall men each of whom had a dart and target.  Their darts were all headed with iron