For in the account of that fatal, though successful voyage, which cost the lives both of Sir John Hawkins, who died off Porto Rico, and Sir Francis Drake, who died off Porto Bello, where Hosier and the greater part of the crews of a noble British fleet perished a hundred and fifty years afterward, it is written in Hakluyt how--after running up N.and N.W.past Saba--the fleet 'stood away S.W., and on the 8th of November, being a Saturday, we came to an anker some 7 or 8 leagues off among certain broken Ilands called Las Virgines, which have bene accounted dangerous: but we found there a very good rode, had it bene for a thousand sails of ships in 7 & 8 fadomes, fine sand, good ankorage, high Ilands on either side, but no fresh water that we could find: here is much fish to be taken with nets and hookes: also we stayed on shore and fowled.

Here Sir John Hawkins was extreme sick' (he died within ten days), 'which his sickness began upon newes of the taking of the Francis' (his stern-most vessel).

'The 18th day wee weied and stood north and by east into a lesser sound, which Sir Francis in his barge discovered the night before; and ankored in 13 fadomes, having hie steepe hiles on either side, some league distant from our first riding.
'The 12 in the morning we weied and set sayle into the Sea due south through a small streit but without danger'-- possibly the very gap in which the Rhone's wreck now lies--'and then stode west and by north for S.Juan de Puerto Rico.' This northerly course is, plainly, the most advantageous for a homeward-bound ship, as it strikes the Gulf Stream soonest, and keeps in it longest.

Conversely, the southerly route by the Azores is best for outward-bound ships; as it escapes most of the Gulf Stream, and traverses the still Sargasso Sea, and even the extremity of the westward equatorial current.
Strange as these Virgin Isles had looked when seen from the south, outside, and at the distance of a few miles, they looked still more strange when we were fairly threading our way between them, sometimes not a rifle-shot from the cliffs, with the white coral banks gleaming under our keel.

Had they ever carried a tropic vegetation?
Had the hills of Tortola and Virgin Gorda, in shape and size much like those which surround a sea-loch in the Western Islands, ever been furred with forests like those of Guadaloupe or St.Lucia?
The loftier were now mere mounds of almost barren earth; the lower were often, like 'Fallen Jerusalem,' mere long earthless moles, as of minute Cyclopean masonry.