They at length crossed the line, with the loss only of one man, who died of a high fever; and on getting into the latitude of 3° S. they fell into the true trade-wind, before which they scudded along at a great rate. In lat. 5° S. they had the sun directly vertical, so that they were some days without any observation. In 6° S. they caught many dorados and dolphins, both, in the opinion of the author of this voyage, being the same fish, of which the dolphin is the male and the dorado the female. Some of these are six feet long, but not of proportional bulk. In the water they appear excessively beautiful, their skins shining as if streaked with burnished gold; but lose their splendid appearance on being taken out of the water. Their flesh is very sweet and well flavoured, so that the seamen always feast when they can procure plenty of this fish. They saw also abundance of sharks, many of which are ten feet long. Their flesh is hard, stringy, and very disagreeably tasted; yet the seamen frequently hang them up in the air for a day or two, and then eat them: Which compliment the surviving sharks never fail to return when a seaman falls in their way, either dead or alive, and seem to attend ships for that purpose.
_Arrival in Brazil, with some Account of that Country._
Coming near the coast of Brazil, their design was to have anchored at the island _Grande_, but finding they had passed that island, they continued their course till off Porto, in lat. 24° S. where they came to anchor. Some of the ship's company of the commodore then got into the boat in order to go shore, both for the purpose of procuring wood and water and other refreshments, and in order to bury one of their seamen who had died. Before they could get on shore, they descried a body of Portuguese well armed moving along the coast, who seemed to prevent them from landing, and beckoned the Dutch to keep off, threatening to fire if they attempted to land: But, on shewing them the dead body, they allowed them to land, and even shewed them a place in which to inter their dead companion. Being desirous of procuring some intelligence, the Dutch asked many questions about the country, but could only get for answer, that Porto was an advanced port to St Sebastian, not marked in the charts, and that they were inhabitants of Rio Janeiro, which lay at the distance of eight miles.[1] The Dutch endeavoured to persuade them to go on board the commodore, but they refused, fearing they might be pirates, which frequently used to come upon the coast, and, under pretence of getting fresh water, would land and pillage any of the little towns near the sea.