FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   215   216   217   218   219   220   221   222   223   224   225   226   227   228   229   230   231   232   233   234   235   236   237   238   239  
240   241   242   243   244   245   246   247   248   249   250   251   252   253   254   255   256   257   258   259   260   261   262   263   264   >>   >|  
hem a note on our company to receive twelve pounds twelve shillings for the same. For the fat sheep we got on Penguin island, we left lean in their room. The Dutch here behaved to us in a very honest and Christian-like manner. I left a note here of my arrival and the state of my company, as others had done before me. All the time we remained at the Cape, from the 23d December, 1609, to the 10th January, 1610, the wind was westerly and southerly; whereas the two former times of my being here, at the same season, it blew storms at east. [Footnote 184: This cape is only in lat. 34 deg. 4S' S. So that their latitude here could not exceed 35 deg. 10', giving an error in excess of eighteen minutes in the text--E.] The 10th January, 1610, we weighed and set sail homewards. The 20th about noon we passed the tropic of Capricorn; and that evening the Dutch officers came and supped with me, whom I saluted with three guns at parting. The 30th before day-light, we got sight of St Helena, having steered sixty-six leagues west in that latitude. We came to anchor a mile from shore, in twenty-two fathoms sandy ground, N.W. from the chapel. This island is about 270 or 280 leagues west from the coast of Africa. We were forced to steer close under the high land to find anchorage, the bank being so steep as to have no anchorage farther out. We weighed on the 9th February, making sail homewards, having received from the island nineteen goats, nine hogs, and thirteen pigs. The 16th we saw the island of Ascension, seven or eight leagues to the W.S.W. In the morning of the 28th, the wind westerly and reasonably fair weather, we spoke the Dutch ship, which made a waft for us at his mizen-top-mast head. He told us that he had only eight or nine men able for duty, all the rest being sick, and forty-six of his crew dead. This was a grievous chastisement for them, who had formerly offered to spare me twenty men or more upon occasion, and a never-sufficiently-to-be-acknowledged mercy to us, that they should be in so pitiable a case, while we had not lost one man, and were even all in good health. Towards night, considering our leak, with many other just causes on our part, besides our want of means to aid them, and at my company's earnest desire, we made sail and left them, not without sensible Christian grief that we could give them no assistance. Indeed, without asking us to remain by them, they desired us to acquaint any Dutch ship we might me
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   215   216   217   218   219   220   221   222   223   224   225   226   227   228   229   230   231   232   233   234   235   236   237   238   239  
240   241   242   243   244   245   246   247   248   249   250   251   252   253   254   255   256   257   258   259   260   261   262   263   264   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

island

 

leagues

 

company

 

weighed

 
latitude
 
homewards
 

anchorage

 

westerly

 

twenty

 

January


Christian

 

twelve

 

shillings

 

chastisement

 

pounds

 

grievous

 

Ascension

 
nineteen
 

thirteen

 

morning


offered
 
weather
 

occasion

 

earnest

 

desire

 

desired

 

acquaint

 
remain
 

assistance

 

Indeed


acknowledged

 
pitiable
 

receive

 
sufficiently
 

received

 

Towards

 
health
 
Penguin
 

eighteen

 

minutes


excess

 

giving

 

evening

 

officers

 

supped

 

Capricorn

 
tropic
 

passed

 
exceed
 

storms