I explored the harbour with the boats. I have never seen a harbour to equal it. I have said such fine things about the earlier ones that it is difficult to find words to convey the excellence of this one properly, and I fear I may be condemned for exaggerating things beyond the truth. In my defence, I have old sailors in my company who say the same and will confirm it, and any seafarer will agree: my fine descriptions of the earlier harbours were true, and it is also true that this one is much better than all the rest. I have been a seafarer for twenty-three years, never staying ashore for any length of time worth mentioning; I have seen all the Levant and all the countries of the west; I have made passages north to England and south to the Guinea coast, and nowhere in all those lands could a man find harbours as perfect as on these islands, where we have found every one better than the last.