Page:The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation 15.djvu/159

 Which being declared by the Captaine to the company, they desired to haue pledges for the performance of all things doubting that otherwise when they had made themselues stronger they would haue bene at defiance with vs: and seeing that now they might haue what they would request, they iudged it to be more wisedome to be in assurance then to be forced to make any more labours about it. So vpon this, gages were sent, and we made our trafique quietly with them. In the mean time while we stayed here, wee watered a good breadth off from the shore, where by the strength of the fresh water running into the Sea, the salt water was made fresh. In this Riuer we saw many Crocodils of sundry bignesses, but some as bigge as a boate, with 4. feete, a long broad mouth, and a long taile, whose skinne is so hard, that a sword wil not pierce it. His nature is to liue out of the water as a frogge doth, but he is a great deuourer, and spareth neither fish, which is his common food, nor beastes, nor men, if he take them, as the proofe thereof was knowen by a Negro, who as hee was filling water in the Riuer was by one of them caried cleane away, and neuer seene after. His nature is euer when hee would haue his prey, to cry and sobbe like a Christian body, to prouoke them to come to him, and then hee snatcheth at them, and thereupon came this prouerbe that is applied vnto women when they weepe, Lachrymæ Crocodili, the meaning whereof is, that as the Crocodile when hee crieth, goeth then about most to deceiue, so doeth a woman most commonly when she weepeth. Of these the Master of the Iesus watched one, and by the banks side stroke him with a pike of a bill in the side, and after three or foure times turning in sight, hee sunke downe, and was not afterward seene. In the time of our being in the Riuers Guinie, wee sawe many of a monstrous bignesse, amongst the which the captaine being in one of the Barkes comming downe the same, shot a Faulcon at one, which very narrowly hee missed, and with a feare hee plunged into the water, making a streame like the way of a boate.

Now while we were here, whether it were of a feare that the Spaniards doubted wee would haue done them some harme before we departed, or for any treason that they intended towards vs, I am not able to say; but then came thither a Captaine from some of the other townes, with a dozen souldiers vpon a time when our Captaine and the treasurer cleared al things betweene them, and were in a communication of debt of the gouernors of