so mulatto-like
as one might expect from a man not at all careful of it, and living
within nineteen degrees of the equinox. My beard I had once suffered
to grow till it was about a quarter of a yard long; but as I had both
scissors and razors sufficient, I had cut it pretty short, except what
grew on my upper lip, which I had trimmed into a large pair of
Mahometan whiskers such as I had seen worn by some Turks whom I saw at
Sallee; for the Moors did not wear such, though the Turks did. Of
these mustachios or whiskers, I will not say they were long enough to
hang my hat upon them, but they were of a length and shape monstrous
enough, and such as, in England, would have passed for frightful.

But all this is by the bye; for as to my figure I had so few to
observe me that it was of no manner of consequence; so I say no more
to that part. In this kind of figure I went my new journey, and was
out five or six days. I traveled first along the seashore, directly to
the place where I first brought my boat to an anchor, to get up upon
the rocks. And having no boat now to take care of, I went over the
land, a nearer way, to the same height that I was upon before; when,
looking forward to the point of the rocks which lay out, and which I
was obliged to double with my boat, as is said above, I was surprised
to see the sea all smooth and quiet, no rippling, no motion, no
current, any more there than in other places.

I was at a strange loss to understand this, and resolved to spend some
time in the observing it, to see if nothing from the sets of the tide
had occasioned it. But I was presently convinced how it was, viz.,
that the tide of ebb setting from the west, and joining with the
current of waters from some great river on the shore, must be the
occasion of this current; and that according as the wind blew more
forcibly from the west, or from the north, this current came near, or
went farther from the shore; for waiting thereabouts till evening, I
went up to the rock again, and then the tide of ebb being made, I
plainly saw the current again as before, only that it run farther off,
being near half a league from the shore; whereas in my case it set
close upon the shore, and hurried me and my canoe along with it,
which, at another time, it would not have done.

This observation convinced me that I had nothing to do but to observe
the ebbing and the flowing of the tide, and I might very easily bring
my boat about the island again