so laboured that the knee of her head, and her whole
beak-head, became loose, so that the boltsprit fetched away and played
with every motion of the ship, and so continued all the rest of
the time we were at sea. For some time our main-mast stood without
larboard shrouds, till we could unlay our best cable to make more,
having knotted and spliced the old shrouds till our labour was in
vain. In the midst of these difficulties, I was taken very ill, and
had little expectations of living much longer, till the gout gave me
some painful hopes of recovery.

In the beginning of October, we made the island of Guam, 100 leagues
short of the account given by Rogers, who makes 105 deg. of longitude
between Cape St Lucas and Guam, while we made not quite 100 deg..[2] We
passed through between Guam and Serpana, and saw several flying proas,
but none came near us that day. We had heavy and squally weather,
which obliged me to keep the deck in the rain, by which I caught a
cold, which threw me into a worse condition than before, in which I
continued all the time I was in China. Guam seemed very green and of
moderate height, and the sight of land was so pleasant after our long
run, that we would gladly have stopped to procure some refreshments,
but durst not venture in, though on the point of perishing, lest the
inhabitants should take advantage of our weakness. From Guam I shaped
our course for the island of Formosa, to which we had a long and
melancholy voyage, as our sickness daily increased; so that, on the 3d
November, when we got sight of that island, both ship and company
were almost entirely worn out. Next day we doubled the south Cape of
Formosa, passing within a league of the rocks of _Vele-Rete_, where
we were sensible of a very strong current. As we passed in sight, the
inhabitants of Formosa made continual fires on the coast, as inviting
us to land; but we were so weak that we did not deem it prudent to
venture into any of their harbours.

[Footnote 2: Rogers is however nearer the truth, the difference of
longitude being 106 deg. 42' between these two places.--E.]

We directed our course from Formosa for the neighbouring coast of
China, and found ourselves on the 6th at the mouth of the river
_Loma_,[3] in twelve fathoms water, but the weather was so hazy that
we could not ascertain where we were. Seeing abundance of fishing
boats, we tried every method we could think of to induce some of
the fishermen to come on board