The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton

land, and no certainty which way to getprovisions but by force; but for the present I held my tongue, becauseit was my tutor's opinion.

  But when, according to his desire, we came to turn southward, havingpassed beyond the second great lake, our men began all to be uneasy,and said we were now out of our way for certain, for that we were goingfarther from home, and that we were indeed far enough off already.

  But we had not marched above twelve days more, eight whereof were takenup in rounding the lake, and four more south-west, in order to make forthe river Congo, but we were put to another full stop, by entering acountry so desolate, so frightful, and so wild, that we knew not what tothink or do; for, besides that it appeared as a terrible and boundlessdesert, having neither woods, trees, rivers, or inhabitants, so even theplace where we were was desolate of inhabitants, nor had we any way togather in a stock of provisions for the passing of this desert, as wedid before at our entering the first, unless we had marched back fourdays to the place where we turned the head of the lake.

  Well, notwithstanding this, we ventured; for, to men that had passedsuch wild places as we had done, nothing could seem too desperate toundertake. We ventured, I say, and the rather because we saw very highmountains in our way at a great distance, and we imagined, whereverthere were mountains there would be springs and rivers; where riversthere would be trees and grass; where trees and grass there wouldbe cattle; and where cattle, some kind of inhabitants. At last, inconsequence of this speculative philosophy, we entered this waste,having a great heap of roots and plants for our bread, such as theIndians gave us, a very little flesh or salt, and but a little water.

  We travelled two days towards those hills, and still they seemed asfar off as they did at first, and it was the fifth day before we got tothem; indeed, we travelled but softly, for it was excessively hot; andwe were much about the very equinoctial line, we hardly knew whether tothe south or the north of it.

  As we had concluded, that where there were hills there would be springs,so it happened; but we were not only surprised, but really frighted, tofind the first spring we came to, and which looked admirably clear andbeautiful, to be salt as brine. It was a terrible disappointment to us,and put us under melancholy apprehensions at first; but the gunner, whowas of a spirit never discouraged, told us we should not be disturbed atthat, but be very thankful, for salt was a bait we stood in as much needof as anything, and there was no question but we should find fresh wateras well as salt; and here our surgeon stepped in to encourage us, andtold us that if we did not know he would show us a way how to make thatsalt water fresh, which indeed made us all more cheerful, though wewondered what he meant.

  Meantime our men, without bidding, had been seeking about for othersprings, and found several; but still they were all salt; from whencewe concluded that there was a salt rock or mineral stone in thosemountains, and perhaps they might be all of such a substance; but stillI wondered by what witchcraft it was that our artist the surgeon wouldmake this salt water turn fresh, and I longed to see the experiment,which was indeed a very odd one; but he went to work with as muchassurance as if he had tried it on the very spot before.

  He took two of our large mats and sewed them together, and they made akind of a bag four feet broad, three feet and a half high, and about afoot and a half thick when it was full.

  He caused us to fill this bag with dry sand and tread it down as closeas we could, not to burst the mats. When thus the bag was full withina foot, he sought some other earth and filled up the rest with it, andstill trod all in as hard as he could. When he had done, he made ahole in the upper earth about as broad as the crown of a large hat, orsomething bigger about, but not so deep, and bade a negro fill it withwater, and still as it shrunk away to fill it again, and keep it full.The bag he had placed at first across two pieces of wood, about a footfrom the ground; and under it he ordered some of our skins to be spreadthat would hold water. In about an hour, and not sooner, the waterbegan to come dropping through the bottom of the bag, and, to our greatsurprise, was perfectly fresh and sweet, and this continued for severalhours; but in the end the water began to be a little brackish. When wetold him that, "Well, then," said he, "turn the sand out, and fill itagain." Whether he did this by way of experiment from his own fancy, orwhether he had seen it done before, I do not remember.

  The next day we mounted the tops of the hills, where the prospect wasindeed astonishing, for as far as the eye could look, south, or west, ornorthwest, there was nothing to be seen but a vast howling wilderness,with neither tree nor river, nor any green thing. The surface we found,as the part we passed the day before, had a kind of thick moss uponit, of a blackish dead colour, but nothing in it that looked like food,either for man or beast.

  Had we been stored with provisions to have entered for ten or twentydays upon this wilderness, as we were formerly, and with fresh water, wehad hearts good enough to have ventured, though we had been obliged tocome back again, for if we went north we did not know but we might meetwith the same; but we neither had provisions, neither were we in anyplace where it was possible to get them. We killed some wild ferinecreatures at the foot of these hills; but, except two things, like tonothing that we ever saw before, we met with nothing that was fitto eat. These were creatures that seemed to be between the kind of abuffalo and a deer, but indeed resembled neither; for they had no horns,and had great legs like a cow, with a fine head, and the neck like adeer. We killed also, at several times, a tiger, two young lions, and awolf; but, God be thanked, we were not so reduced as to eat carrion.

  Upon this terrible prospect I renewed my motion of turning northward,and making towards the river Niger or Rio Grande, then to turn westtowards the English settlements on the Gold Coast; to which every onemost readily consented, only our gunner, who was indeed our best guide,though he happened to be mistaken at this time. He moved that, as ourcoast was now northward, so we might slant away north-west, that so, bycrossing the country, we might perhaps meet with some other river thatrun into the Rio Grande northward, or down to the Gold Coast southward,and so both direct our way and shorten the labour; as also because, ifany of the country was inhabited and fruitful, we should probably findit upon the shore of the rivers, where alone we could be furnished withprovisions.

  This was good advice, and too rational not to be taken; but our presentbusiness was, what to do to get out of this dreadful place we were in.Behind us was a waste, which had already cost us five days' march, andwe had not provisions for five days left to go back again the same way.Before us was nothing but horror, as above; so we resolved, seeing theridge of the hills we were upon had some appearance of fruitfulness,and that they seemed to lead away to the northward a great way, to keepunder the foot of them on the east side, to go on as far as we could,and in the meantime to look diligently out for food.

  Accordingly we moved on the next morning; for we had no time to lose,and, to our great comfort, we came in our first morning's march to verygood springs of fresh water; and lest we should have a scarcity again,we filled all our bladder bottles and carried it with us. I should alsohave observed that our surgeon, who made the salt water fresh, took theopportunity of those salt springs, and made us the quantity of three orfour pecks of very good salt.

  In our third march we found an unexpected supply of food, the hillsbeing full of hares. They were of a kind something different from oursin England, larger and not as swift of foot, but very good meat. We shotseveral of them, and the little tame leopard, which I told you we tookat the negro town that we plundered, hunted them like a dog, and killedus several every day; but she would eat nothing of them unless we gaveit her, which, indeed, in our circumstance, was very obliging. We saltedthem a little and dried them in the sun whole, and carried a strangeparcel along with us. I think it was almost three hundred, for we didnot know when we might find any more, either of these or any other food.We continued our course under these hills very comfortably for eight ornine days, when we found, to our great satisfaction, the country beyondus began
to look with something of a better countenance. As for the westside of the hills, we never examined it till this day, when three of ourcompany, the rest halting for refreshment, mounted the hills again tosatisfy their curiosity, but found it all the same, nor could they seeany end of it, no, not to the north, the way we were going; so the tenthday, finding the hills made a turn, and led as it were into the vastdesert, we left them and continued our course north, the country beingvery tolerably full of woods, some waste, but not tediously long, tillwe came, by our gunner's observation, into the latitude of eight degreesfive minutes, which we were nineteen days more in performing.

  All this way we found no inhabitants, but abundance of wild ravenouscreatures, with which we became so well acquainted now that really wedid not much mind them. We saw lions and tigers and leopards every nightand morning in abundance; but as they seldom came near us, we let themgo about their business: if they offered to come near us, we