accordingly; and the idea is so fresh in my thought, that Icannot but give a short description of it.
Our camp was on the south side of a little creek on the sea, and underthe shelter of a steep hill, which lay, though on the other side ofthe creek, yet within a quarter of a mile of us, N.W. by N., and veryhappily intercepted the heat of the sun all the after part of the day.The spot we pitched on had a little fresh water brook, or a streamrunning into the creek by us; and we saw cattle feeding in the plainsand low ground east and to the south of us a great way.
Here we set up twelve little huts like soldiers' tents, but made of theboughs of trees stuck in the ground, and bound together on the topwith withies, and such other things as we could get; the creek was ourdefence on the north, a little brook on the west, and the south and eastsides were fortified with a bank, which entirely covered our huts; andbeing drawn oblique from the north-west to the south-east, made our citya triangle. Behind the bank or line our huts stood, having three otherhuts behind them at a good distance. In one of these, which was a littleone, and stood further off, we put our gunpowder, and nothing else, forfear of danger; in the other, which was bigger, we dressed our victuals,and put all our necessaries; and in the third, which was biggest of all,we ate our dinners, called our councils, and sat and diverted ourselveswith such conversation as we had one with another, which was butindifferent truly at that time.
Our correspondence with the natives was absolutely necessary, and ourartist the cutler having made abundance of those little diamond-cutsquares of silver, with these we made shift to traffic with the blackpeople for what we wanted; for indeed they were pleased wonderfully withthem, and thus we got plenty of provisions. At first, and in particular,we got about fifty head of black cattle and goats, and our cook's matetook care to cure them and dry them, salt and preserve them for ourgrand supply; nor was this hard to do, the salt and saltpetre being verygood, and the sun excessively hot; and here we lived about four months.
The southern solstice was over, and the sun gone back towards theequinoctial, when we considered of our next adventure, which was to goover the sea of Zanguebar, as the Portuguese call it, and to land, ifpossible, upon the continent of Africa.
We talked with many of the natives about it, such as we could makeourselves intelligible to, but all that we could learn from them was,that there was a great land of lions beyond the sea, but that it was agreat way off. We knew as well as they that it was a long way, but ourpeople differed mightily about it; some said it was 150 leagues, othersnot above 100. One of our men, that had a map of the world, showed usby his scale that it was not above eighty leagues. Some said there wereislands all the way to touch at, some that there were no islands at all.For my own part, I knew nothing of this matter one way or another, butheard it all without concern, whether it was near or far off; however,this we learned from an old man who was blind and led about by a boy,that if we stayed till the end of August, we should be sure of the windto be fair and the sea smooth all the voyage.
This was some encouragement; but staying again was very unwelcome newsto us, because that then the sun would be returning again to the south,which was what our men were very unwilling to. At last we called acouncil of our whole body; their debates were too tedious to take noticeof, only to note, that when it came to Captain Bob (for so they calledme ever since I had taken state upon me before one of their greatprinces), truly I was on no side; it was not one farthing matter to me,I told them, whether we went or stayed; I had no home, and all the worldwas alike to me; so I left it entirely to them to determine.
In a word, they saw plainly there was nothing to be done where we werewithout shipping; that if our business indeed was only to eat and drink,we could not find a better place in the world; but if our business wasto get away, and get home into our country, we could not find a worse.
I confess I liked the country wonderfully, and even then had strangenotions of coming again to live there; and I used to say to them veryoften that if I had but a ship of twenty guns, and a sloop, and bothwell manned, I would not desire a better place in the world to makemyself as rich as a king.
But to return to the consultations they were in about going. Upon thewhole, it was resolved to venture over for the main; and venture we did,madly enough, indeed, for it was the wrong time of the year to undertakesuch a voyage in that country; for, as the winds hang easterly all themonths from September to March, so they generally hang westerly all therest of the year, and blew right in our teeth; so that, as soon aswe had, with a kind of a land-breeze, stretched over about fifteen ortwenty leagues, and, as I may say, just enough to lose ourselves, wefound the wind set in a steady fresh gale or breeze from the sea, atwest, W.S.W., or S.W. by W., and never further from the west; so that,in a word, we could make nothing of it.
On the other hand, the vessel, such as we had, would not lie close upona wind; if so, we might have stretched away N.N.W., and have met with agreat many islands in our way, as we found afterwards; but we could makenothing of it, though we tried, and by the trying had almost undone usall; for, stretching away to the north, as near the wind as we could, wehad forgotten the shape and position of the island of Madagascar itself;how that we came off at the head of a promontory or point of land, thatlies about the middle of the island, and that stretches out west a greatway into the sea; and that now, being run a matter of forty leagues tothe north, the shore of the island fell off again above 200 miles to theeast, so that we were by this time in the wide ocean, between the islandand the main, and almost 100 leagues from both.
Indeed, as the winds blew fresh at west, as before, we had a smooth sea,and we found it pretty good going before it, and so, taking our smallestcanoe in tow, we stood in for the shore with all the sail we could make.This was a terrible adventure, for, if the least gust of wind had come,we had been all lost, our canoes being deep and in no condition to makeway in a high sea.
This voyage, however, held us eleven days in all; and at length, havingspent most of our provisions, and every drop of water we had, we spiedland, to our great joy, though at the distance of ten or eleven leagues;and as, under the land, the wind came off like a land-breeze, and blewhard against us, we were two days more before we reached the shore,having all that while excessive hot weather, and not a drop of water orany other liquor, except some cordial waters, which one of our companyhad a little of left in a case of bottles.
This gave us a taste of what we should have done if we had venturedforward with a scant wind and uncertain weather, and gave us a surfeitof our design for the main, at least until we might have some bettervessels under us; so we went on shore again, and pitched our campas before, in as convenient manner as we could, fortifying ourselvesagainst any surprise; but the natives here were exceeding courteous,and much more civil than on the south part of the island; and though wecould not understand what they said, or they us, yet we found means tomake them understand that we were seafaring men and strangers, and thatwe were in distress for want of provisions.
The first proof we had of their kindness was, that as soon as they sawus come on shore and begin to make our habitation, one of their captainsor kings, for we knew not what to call them, came down with five or sixmen and some women, and brought us five goats and two young fatsteers, and gave them to us for nothing; and when we went to offer themanything, the captain or the king would not let any of them touch it,or take anything of us. About two hours after came another king, orcaptain, with forty or fifty men after him. We began to be afraid ofhim, and laid hands upon our weapons; but he perceiving it, caused twomen to go before him, carrying two long poles in their hands, which theyheld upright, as high as they could, which we presently perceived wasa signal of peace; and these two poles they set up afterwards, stickingthem up in the ground; and when the king and his men came to thesetwo poles, they struck all their lances up in the ground, and came onunarmed, leaving their lances, as also their bows and arrows, behindthem.
This was to satisfy us that they were come as friends, and we
were gladto see it, for we had no mind to quarrel with them if we could help it.The captain of this gang seeing some of our men making up their huts,and that they did it but bunglingly, he beckoned to some of his men togo and help us. Immediately fifteen or sixteen of them came and mingledamong us, and went to work for us; and indeed, they were better workmenthan we were, for they run up three or four huts for us in a moment, andmuch handsomer done than ours.
After this they sent us milk, plantains, pumpkins, and abundance ofroots and greens that were very good, and then took their leave, andwould not take anything from us that we had. One of our men offered theking or captain of these men a dram, which he drank and was mightilypleased with it, and held out his hand for another, which we gave him;and in a word, after this, he hardly failed coming to us two or threetimes a week, always bringing us something or other; and one time sentus seven head of black cattle, some of which we cured and dried asbefore.
And here I cannot but remember