f come for me,
and I went on board the caravel, to take care that no harm was offered,
and to see if they would spare us any thing for our money. Accordingly
we got from them three _tapnets_ of figs, two small jars of oil, two
pipes of water, and four hogsheads of salt fish, which they had taken on
the coast, besides some fresh fish, which they held of no value, as they
are so plentiful on that coast that one man may often take as many in an
hour or less as will serve twenty men a whole day. For these things,
some wine we drank while on board their ship, and three or four great
cans which they sent on board our ships, I paid them 27 pistoles, being
twice as much as they would willingly have taken. We then let them go to
their anchor and cable which they had slipped, and assisted them to
recover. After this we made sail, but the wind obliged us to come to
anchor again about 12 leagues from the Rio del Oro, as we were informed
by the Portuguese. There were five other caravels in this place, but
immediately on our appearance they all made away for fear of us.

The 15th we continued at anchor, as the wind was still foul. The 16th we
set sail and run our course 40 leagues, being this day, according to our
pilots, right under the Tropic of Cancer, in lat. 23 deg. 30' N. The 17th we
ran 25 leagues, mostly in sight of the coast of Barbary. The 18th we ran
30 leagues, and at noon, by the reckoning of our pilots, were abreast of
Cape Blanco. The 22d they reckoned we were abreast of Cape Verd. The
12th of December we got sight of the coast of Guinea, towards which we
immediately hauled, standing to the N.E. and about 12 at night, being
less than two leagues from the shore, we lay to and sounded, finding 18
fathoms water. We soon afterwards saw a light between us and the shore,
which we thought might have been a ship, from which circumstance we
judged ourselves off the river Sestro, and we immediately came to
anchor, armed our tops, and made all clear for action, suspecting it
might be some Portuguese or French ship. In the morning we saw no ship
whatever, but espied four rocks about two English miles from us, one
being a large rock and the other three small; whence we concluded that
the light seen during the night had been on shore. We then weighed and
stood E.S.E. along shore, because the master did not rightly know the
place, but thought we were still to the westward of Sestro river. All
along this coast the land is low, and full