Introduction
In 1567, Francis Drake had been humiliated on an English expedition against Spanish possessions around the Caribbean. Five years later he returned, seeking revenge. With the help of the Cimarrons — Africans escaped from Spanish slavers, and nursing their own grievances — he planned to snatch gold bound for the Spanish Treasury at Nombre de Dios. But first, his chaplain tells us, he had a stop to make.
ALL the way was through woods very cool and pleasant, by reason of those goodly and high trees, that grow there so thick, that it is cooler travelling there under them in that hot region, than it is in the most parts of England in the summer time. This gave a special encouragement unto us all, that we understood there was a great Tree about the midway, from which, we might at once discern the North Sea from whence we came, and the South Sea whither we were going.*
The fourth day following (11th February [1573]) we came to the height of the desired hill, a very high hill, lying East and West, like a ridge between the two seas, about ten of the clock: where the chiefest of these Cimaroons* took our Captain by the hand, and prayed him to follow him, if he was desirous to see at once the two seas, which he had so long longed for.
Here was that goodly and great high Tree, in which they had cut and made divers* steps, to ascend up near unto the top, where they had also made a convenient bower, wherein ten or twelve men might easily sit: and from thence we might, without any difficulty, plainly see the Atlantic Ocean whence now we came, and the South Atlantic* so much desired.
* The North Sea here means the Atlantic Ocean, and the South Sea means the Pacific Ocean. When Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and saw the strange waters, he named them Mar del Sur, the Southern Sea: the lie of the land there is such that one looks roughly north to the Atlantic and south to the Pacific. In 1521, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed past the coast of Brazil, down to the Magellan Strait in Chile, and crossed into what in gratitude for fair winds he named the Mar Pacífico, ‘the peaceful sea’. It was this name that stuck, but fifty years later Drake’s men still used the older Spanish name.
* His name was Pedro. The Cimarrons were Africans of the Caribbean region who had escaped slavery to their Spanish masters, and banded together in resistance to them.
* Various, several.
* That is, the Pacific Ocean. In fact, Drake was not the first Englishman to see the Pacific, nor to sail in it: the master gunner of Ferdinand Magellan’s ship had been an Englishman.
Précis
In 1573, Francis Drake returned to Panama hoping to cause as much discomfiture as possible to the Spanish bullion trade. As his party of Englishmen climbed a densely-forested ridge in Darien, their local guide pointed out a tree from which a man could see the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific too — well aware that this was Drake’s dream. (58 / 60 words)
In 1573, Francis Drake returned to Panama hoping to cause as much discomfiture as possible to the Spanish bullion trade. As his party of Englishmen climbed a densely-forested ridge in Darien, their local guide pointed out a tree from which a man could see the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific too — well aware that this was Drake’s dream.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: because, just, may, or, otherwise, ought, whereas, whether.
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