dred men on board,
commanded by Captain Swan, and a bark, commanded by Captain Tait, with
whom went fifty men besides slaves, made sail from Cape Corrientes with
a fresh breeze of north-north-east. The only provisions they had been
able to obtain were some Jew-fish, caught by the Mosquito men, and
salted, and a store of maize. They now steered due west for the
Ladrones. As they might possibly be fifty or sixty days before making
Guam, the crews were at once put on short allowance, having only one
meal a day. In three days they had consumed their salted Jew-fish, and
had now nothing but the maize on which to subsist. However, they made
good runs every day before the fresh trade winds, and in about twenty
days the crews, expecting to get soon in, insisted on having a larger
allowance.

With some reluctance the captain allowed them ten spoonfuls of maize a
day each man, instead of eight. Dampier declares that he benefited by
this meagre fare, and drank about three times every twenty-four hours,
but some men drank only once in nine or ten days, and one did not
swallow any liquid for seventeen days, and asserted that he did not feel
at all thirsty. They ran on for nearly five thousand miles without
seeing a flying-fish or fowl of any sort, but then they fell in with a
number of boobies, which they supposed came from some rocks not far off.
As they approached Guam some rain fell, a sign that they were in the
neighbourhood of land. Many of the crew were in a state of mutiny, and
had formed a plot to kill Captain Swan and eat him should their
provisions fail, and they had now only meal sufficient for three days
more.

He was a stout, lusty man, and when the danger was past he remarked,
laughing, "Ah, Dampier, you would have made them but a poor meal!" for
the latter was as lean as the captain was fat.

The bark being ahead, passed over a shoal with only four fathoms of
water on it, on which Captain Tait hauled his wind and waited for the
_Cygnet_. He then came on board and described what he had seen. At
first they were very doubtful where they had got to, as no shoal was
marked on the Spanish charts; but by keeping northward, at four o'clock
that evening, the 20th of May, the island of Guam was sighted. On the
following day the two vessels came to an anchor on the western side of
Guam, about a mile from shore, after a run of seven thousand three
hundred and two miles. The Spaniards had here a port and a garrison