passed, and other inconveniences notsurmountable, they resolved to go back, and take the river Malwatta Oya,which they had before judged would be a probable guide to lead them tothe sea; and, that they might not be pursued, left Anuradhapoora just atnight, when the people never travel for fear of wild beasts, on Sunday,October 12, being stored with all things needful for their journey,viz., ten days' provision, a basin to boil their provision in, twocalabashes to fetch water in, and two great tallipat leaves for tents,with jaggery, sweetmeats, tobacco, betel, tinder-boxes, and a deerskinfor shoes, to keep their feet from thorns, because to them they chieflytrusted. Being come to the river, they struck into the woods, and keptby the side of it; yet not going on the sand (lest their footstepsshould be discerned), unless forced, and then going backwards.
Being gotten a good way into the wood, it began to rain; wherefore theyerected their tents, made a fire, and refreshed themselves against therising of the moon, which was then eighteen days old; and having tieddeerskins about their feet, and eased themselves of their wares, theyproceeded on their journey. When they had travelled three or four hourswith difficulty, because the moon gave but little light among the thicktrees, they found an elephant in their way before them, and because theycould not scare him away, they were forced to stay till morning; and sothey kindled a fire, and took a pipe of tobacco. By the light they couldnot discern that ever anybody had been there, nothing being to be seenbut woods; and so they were in great hopes that they were past alldanger, being beyond all inhabitants; but they were mistaken, for theriver winding northward, brought them into the midst of a parcel oftowns, called Tissea Wava, where, being in danger of being seen, theywere under a mighty terror; for had the people found them, they wouldhave beat them, and sent them up to the king; and, to avoid it, theycrept into a hollow tree, and sat there in mud and wet till it began togrow dark, and then betaking themselves to their legs, travelled tillthe darkness of night stopped them. They heard voices behind them, andfeared it was somebody in pursuit of them; but at length, discerningit was only an hallooing to keep the wild beasts out of the corn, theypitched their tents by the river, and having boiled rice and roastedmeat for their suppers, and satisfied their hunger, they committedthemselves to God's keeping, and laid them down to sleep.
The next morning, to prevent the worst, they got up early and hastenedon their journey; and though they were now got out of all danger of thetame Chiangulays, they were in great danger of the wild ones, of whomthose woods were full; and though they saw their tents, yet they wereall gone, since the rains had fallen, from the river into the woods; andso God kept them from that danger, for, had they met the wild men, theyhad been shot.
Thus they travelled from morning till night several days, through bushesand thorns, which made their arms and shoulders, which were naked,all of a gore blood. They often met with bears, hogs, deer, and wildbuffaloes; but they all ran away as soon as they saw them. The river wasexceedingly full of alligators; in the evening they used to pitch theirtents, and make great fires both before and behind them, to affrightthe wild beasts; and though they heard the voices of all sorts, they sawnone.
On Thursday, at noon, they crossed the river Coronda [? Kannadera Oya],which parts the country of the Malabars from the king's, and on Friday,about nine or ten in the morning, came among the inhabitants, of whomthey were as much afraid as of the Chiangulays before; for, though theWanniounay, or prince of this people, payeth tribute to the Dutch outof fear, yet he is better affected to the King of Kandy, and, if he hadtook them, would have sent them up to their old master; but not knowingany way to escape, they kept on their journey by the river-side by day,because the woods were not to be travelled by night for thorns and wildbeasts, who came down then to the river to drink. In all the Malabarcountry they met with only two Brahmins, who treated them very civilly;and for their money, one of them conducted them till they came into theterritories of the Dutch, and out of all danger of the King of Kandy,which did not a little rejoice them; but yet they were in no smalltrouble how to find the way out of the woods, till a Malabar, for thelucre of a knife, conducted them to a Dutch town, where they foundguides to conduct them from town to town, till they came to the fortcalled Aripo, where they arrived Saturday, October 18, 1679, and therethankfully adored God's wonderful providence, in thus completing theirdeliverance from a long captivity of nineteen years and six months.
I come now back to my own history, which grows near a conclusion, as tothe travels I took in this part of the world. We were now at sea, and westood away to the north for a while, to try if we could get a market forour spice, for we were very rich in nutmegs, but we ill knew what todo with them; we durst not go upon the English coast, or, to speak moreproperly, among the English factories to trade; not that we were afraidto fight any two ships they had, and, besides that, we knew that, asthey had no letters of marque, or of reprisals from the government, soit was none of their business to act offensively, no, not though we werepirates. Indeed, if we had made any attempt upon them, they might havejustified themselves in joining together to resist, and assisting oneanother to defend themselves; but to go out of their business to attacka pirate ship of almost fifty guns, as we were, it was plain that it wasnone of their business, and consequently it was none of our concern, sowe did not trouble ourselves about it; but, on the other hand, it wasnone of our business to be seen among them, and to have the news of uscarried from one factory to another, so that whatever design we might beupon at another time, we should be sure to be prevented and discovered.Much less had we any occasion to be seen among any of the Dutchfactories upon the coast of Malabar; for, being fully laden with thespices which we had, in the sense of their trade, plundered them of, itwould have told them what we were, and all that we had been doing; andthey would, no doubt, have concerned themselves all manner of ways tohave fallen upon us.
The only way we had for it was to stand away for Goa, and trade, if wecould, for our spices, with the Portuguese factory there. Accordingly,we sailed almost thither, for we had made land two days before, andbeing in the latitude of Goa, were standing in fair for Margaon, on thehead of Salsat, at the going up to Goa, when I called to the men at thehelm to bring the ship to, and bid the pilot go away N.N.W., till wecame out of sight of the shore, when William and I called a council,as we used to do upon emergencies, what course we should take to tradethere and not be discovered; and we concluded at length that we wouldnot go thither at all, but that William, with such trusty fellows onlyas could be depended upon, should go in the sloop to Surat, which wasstill farther northward, and trade there as merchants with such of theEnglish factory as they could find to be for their turn.
To carry this with the more caution, and so as not to be suspected,we agreed to take out all her guns, and put such men into her, and noother, as would promise us not to desire or offer to go on shore, or toenter into any talk or conversation with any that might come on board;and, to finish the disguise to our mind, William documented two of ourmen, one a surgeon, as he himself was, and the other, a ready-wittedfellow, an old sailor, that had been a pilot upon the coast of NewEngland, and was an excellent mimic; these two William dressed up liketwo Quakers, and made them talk like such. The old pilot he made gocaptain of the sloop, and the surgeon for doctor, as he was, and himselfsupercargo. In this figure, and the sloop all plain, no curled work uponher (indeed she had not much before), and no guns to be seen, away hewent for Surat.
I should, indeed, have observed, that we went, some days before weparted, to a small sandy island close under the shore, where there wasa good cove of deep water, like a road, and out of sight of any of thefactories, which are here very thick upon the coast. Here we shifted theloading of the sloop, and put into her such things only as we had a mindto dispose of there, which was indeed little but nutmegs and cloves, butchiefly the former; and from thence William and his two Quakers, withabout eighteen men in the sloop, went away to Surat, and came to ananchor at a distance from the factory.
William used such cauti
on that he found means to go on shore himself,and the doctor, as he called him, in a boat which came on board themto sell fish, rowed with only Indians of the country, which boat heafterwards hired to carry him on board again. It was not long that theywere on shore, but that they found means to get acquaintance with someEnglishmen, who, though they lived there, and perhaps were the company'sservants at first, yet appeared then to be traders for themselves, inwhatever coast business especially came in their way; and the doctor wasmade the first to pick acquaintance; so he recommended his friend, thesupercargo, till, by degrees, the merchants were as fond of the bargainas our men were of the merchants, only that the cargo was a little toomuch for them.
However, this did not prove a difficulty long with them, for the nextday they brought two more merchants, English also, into their bargain,and, as William could perceive by their discourse, they resolved, ifthey bought them, to carry them to the Gulf of