On the 1 2th June they sailed from the Galapagos
Islands for the island Cocos, where they proposed to
water. The wind at this time was south ; but they
expected they should find, as they went northward,
the general trade-wind blowing from the east ; and in
that persuasion they steered more easterly than the
line of direct;ion in which Cocos lay from them, ima-
gining that when they came to the latitude of the

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174 BUCCANEERS OF AMERICA.
island, they would have to bear down upon it before
the wind. Contrary, however, to this expectation, as
they advanced northward they found the wind more
westerly, till at settled at south-west by south, and
they got so far eastward that they crossed the parallel
of Cocos without being able to come in sight of it.
Missing Cocos, they sailed on northward for the
coast of New Spain. In the beginning of July they
made the west cape of the Gulf of Nicoya. "This
cape is about the height of Beachy Head, and was
named Blanco, on account of two white rocks lying
about half-a-mile from it, which, to those who lare: far
off at sea, appear as part of the mainland ; but on
coming nearer, they appear like two ships under sail."*

The day on which they made this land the buc-
caneer commander, John Cook, who had been some
time ill, died. Edward Davis, the quarter-master,
was unanimously elected by the company to succeed
in the command.
* I?apipier,.yol. i. p. iia.
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CHAPTER XIV.
Edward Davis commander. On the coast of New
Spain and Peru. Algatrane, a bituminous earth.
