ns and finding the bottom, go their course
safe and sure, he, thinking to have the winds at will, shot nigh the
land; when the wind, changing into the south, with the assistance of the
mountainous waves, rolled us so near the land that we were in less than
14 fathoms, only six miles from _Capo das Agulias_, and there we looked
to be utterly lost. Under us were huge rocks, so sharp and cutting that
no anchor could possibly hold the ship, and the shore was so excessively
bad that nothing could take the land, which besides is full of _tigers_
and savage people, who put all strangers to death, so that we had no
hope or comfort, but only in God and a good conscience. Yet, after we
had lost our anchors, hoisting up our sails to try to get the ship upon
some safer part of the coast, it pleased God, when no man looked for
help, suddenly to fill our sails with a wind off the land, and so by
good providence we escaped, thanks be to God. The day following, being
in a place where they are always wont to fish, we also fell a fishing,
and caught so many, that they served the whole ships company all that
day and part of the next. One of our lines pulled up a coral of great
size and value; for it is said that in this place, which indeed we saw
by experience, that the corals grow on the rocks at the bottom of the
sea in the manner of stalks, becoming hard and red.

Our day of peril was the 29th of July. You must understand that, after
passing the Cape of Good Hope, there are two ways to India, one within
the island of Madagascar, or between that and Africa, called the Canal
of Mozambique, which the Portuguese prefer, as they refresh themselves
for a fortnight or a month at Mozambique, not without great need after
being so long at sea, and thence in another month get to Goa. The other
course is on the outside of the island of St Lawrence or Madagascar,
which they take when they set out too late, or come so late to the Cape
as not to have time to stop at Mozambique, and then they go on their
voyage in great heaviness, because in this way they have no port; and,
by reason of the long navigation, and the want of fresh provisions and
water, they fall into sundry diseases. Their gums become sore, and swell
in such a manner that they are fain to cut them away; their legs swell,
and all their bodies become sore, and so benumbed that they cannot move
hand nor foot, and so they die of weakness; while others fall into
fluxes and agues, of which the