with long and large bills.  Herons, curlews, boobies, ox-eyes, and various other kinds of waterfowl.  On land, great numbers of grey parrots, and abundance of pintados or Guinea fowls, which are very hurtful to their rice crops.  There are many other kinds of strange birds in the woods, of which I knew not the names; and I saw among the negroes many porcupine quills.  There are also great numbers of monkeys leaping about the trees, and on the mountains there are lions, tigers, and ounces.  There are but few elephants, of which we only saw three, but they abound farther inland.  The negroes told us of a strange beast, which our interpreter called a carbuncle, which is said to be often seen, but only in the night.  This animal is said to carry a stone in his forehead, wonderfully luminous, giving him light by which to feed in the night; and on hearing the slightest noise he presently conceals it with a skin or film naturally provided for the purpose.  The commodities here are few, more being got farther to the eastwards.  At certain times of the year, the Portuguese get gold and elephants teeth in exchange for rice, salt, beads, bells, garlick, French bottles, copper kettles, low-priced knives, hats, linen like barber’s aprons, latten basins, edge-tools, bars of iron, and sundry kinds of specious trinkets; but they will not give gold for toys, only exchanging victuals for such things.

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“This diligent observer hath taken like pains touching Saldanha bay:  But as we touch there often, and have already given many notices of that place, we shall now double the Cape, and take a view along with him of Cape St Augustine.”—­Purch.

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Sec. 2. Observations made at St Augustine in Madagascar, and at the Island of Socotora.

St Augustine, in the great island of St Lawrence or Madagascar, is rather a bay than a cape or point, as it has no land much bearing out beyond the rest of the coast.  It is in 23 deg. 30’ S. latitude, the variation here being 15 deg. 40, and may be easily found, as it has breaches[211] on either side some leagues off to the W.S.W.  Right from the bay to seaward the water is very deep; but within the bay the ground is so very shelvy, that you may have one anchor to the north in 22 fathoms, and your other anchor in more than 60; while in some places nearer shore you will not have two feet at low water, and deep water still farther in; the whole ground a soft ooze.  Within a mile or two of the bay the land is high, barren, and full of rocks and stones, with many small woods.  Two rivers run into the bottom of the bay, the land about them being low, sandy, and overflowed; and these rivers pour in so much water into the bay that their currents are never stemmed by the tide, which yet rises two fathoms, by which the water in the bay is very thick and muddy.  Great quantities of canes are brought down by these rivers, insomuch that we have seen abundance of them