From hence we went to another island to the north-west of this, and within a league or two of the main, which we found to be greater than before we imagined, being sixteen English miles, at the least, in compass; for it containeth many pieces or necks of land, which differ nothing from several islands, saving that certain banks of small breadth do like bridges join them to this island. On the outside of this island are many plain places of grass, abundance of strawberries, and other berries before mentioned. In mid-May we did sow in this island, for a trial, in sundry places, wheat, barley, oats, and peas, which in fourteen days were sprung up nine inches, and more. The soil is fat and lusty, the upper crust of gray color, but a foot or less in depth, of the color of our hemp-lands in England, and being thus apt for these and the like grains. The sowing or setting――after the ground is closed――is no greater labor than if you should set or sow in one of our best prepared gardens in England. This island is full of high timbered oaks, their leaves thrice so broad as ours; cedars, straight and tall; beech, elm, holly, walnut-trees in abundance, the fruit as big as ours, as appeared by those we found under the trees, which had lain all the year ungathered; hazelnut-trees, cherry-trees, the leaf, bark, and bigness not differing from ours in England, but the stalk beareth the blossoms or fruit at the end thereof, like a cluster of grapes, forty or fifty in a bunch; sassafras-trees, great plenty all the island over, a tree of high price and profit; also divers other fruit-trees, some of them with strange barks of an orange color, in feeling soft and smooth like velvet: in the thickest parts of these woods you may see a furlong or more round about.
On the north-west side of this island, near to the seaside, is a standing lake of fresh water, almost three English miles in compass, in the midst whereof stands a plot of woody ground, an acre in quantity, or not above. This lake is full of small tortoises, and exceedingly frequented with all sorts of fowls, before rehearsed,[236] which breed, some low on the banks, and others on low trees about this lake, in great abundance, whose young ones of all sorts we took and ate at our pleasure; but all these fowls are much bigger than ours in England. Also in every island, and almost in every part of every island, are great store of ground-nuts, forty together on a string, some of them as big as hen’s eggs: they grow not two inches under ground, the which nuts we found to be as good as potatoes. Also divers sorts of shell-fish, as scallops, mussels, cockles, lobsters, crabs, oysters, and whelks, exceeding good and very great....