So that if we had been two thousand, yea three
thousand persons, we might with our pinnaces easily have provided them
sufficient victuals of wine, meal, rusk; _cassavi_ (a kind of bread made
of a root called Yucca, whose juice is poison, but the substance good
and wholesome), dried beef, dried fish, live sheep, live hogs, abundance
of hens, besides the infinite store of dainty fresh fish, very easily to
be taken every day: insomuch that we were forced to build four several
magazines or storehouses, some ten, some twenty leagues asunder; some
in islands, some in the Main, providing ourselves in divers places, that
though the enemy should, with force, surprise any one, yet we might be
sufficiently furnished, till we had "made" our voyage as we did hope. In
building of these, our Negro's help was very much, as having a special
skill, in the speedy erection of such houses.
This our store was much, as thereby we relieved not only ourselves and
the Cimaroons while they were with us; but also two French ships in
extreme want.
For in our absence, Captain JOHN DRAKE, having one of our pinnaces, as
was appointed, went in with the Main, and as he rowed aloof the shore,
where he was directed by DIEGO the Negro aforesaid, which willingly came
unto us at Nombre de Dios, he espied certain of the Cimaroons; with whom
he dealt so effectually, that in conclusion he left two of our men
with their leader, and brought aboard two of theirs: agreeing that
they should meet him again the next day, at a river midway between the
Cabecas [Cabeza is Spanish for Headland] and our ships; which they named
Rio Diego.
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