in a company.  I had several brought aboard alive, where they throve very well; some of them 16 or 18 months; when they began to pine.  When they are taken young they will become tame like our hens.  The flamingos I have already described at large.  They have also many other sort of fowls, namely pigeons and turtledoves; miniotas, a sort of land-fowls as big as crows, of a grey colour, and good food; crusias, another sort of grey-coloured fowl almost as big as a crow, which are only seen in the night (probably a sort of owls) and are said to be good for consumptive people but eaten by none else.  Rabeks, a sort of large grey eatable fowls with long necks and legs, not unlike herons; and many kinds of small birds.

Of land animals here are goats, as I said formerly, and asses good store.  When I was here before they were said to have had a great many bulls and cows:  but the pirates who have since miserably infested all these islands have much lessened the number of those; not having spared the inhabitants themselves:  for at my being there this time the governor of Mayo was but newly returned from being a prisoner among them, they having taken him away, and carried him about with them for a year or two.

The sea is plentifully stocked with fish of divers sorts, namely dolphins, bonetas, mullet, snapper, silver-fish, garfish, etc.  And here is a good bay to haul a seine or net in.  I hauled mine several times, and to good purpose; dragging ashore at one time 6 dozen of great fish, most of them large mullet of a foot and a half or two foot long.  Here are also porpoises, and a small sort of whales that commonly visit this road every day.  I have already said that the months of May, June, July and August (that is, the wet season) are the time when the green-turtle come hither and go ashore to lay their eggs.  I look upon it as a thing worth taking notice of that the turtle should always, both in north and south latitude, lay their eggs in the wet months.  It might be thought, considering what great rains there are then in some places where these creatures lay, that their eggs should be spoiled by them.  But the rain, though violent, is soon soaked up by the sand wherein the eggs are buried; and perhaps sinks not so deep into it as the eggs are laid:  and keeping down the heat may make the sand hotter below than it was before, like a hot-bed.  Whatever the reason may be why Providence determines these creatures to this season of laying their eggs, rather than the dry, in fact it is so, as I have constantly observed; and that not only with the sea-turtle but with all other sorts of amphibious animals that lay eggs; as crocodiles, alligators, iguanas etc.  The inhabitants of this island, even their governor and padres, are all negroes, wool-pated like their African neighbours; from whom it is like they are descended; though, being subjects to the Portuguese, they have their religion and language.  They are stout, lusty, well-limbed people, both men and women, fat