blacks. I left London on August 5, 1686, and after different
adventures on the voyage, of which I need not here speak, our ship
reached Madagascar.

The King of Madagascar received us kindly enough, and promised in about
a month to furnish the captain with as many negroes as he desired. This
satisfied us very well, and, mooring the ship, we stayed some days,
trading with the negroes for rice and hens and bananas.

Now one day the supercargo and six of the men and myself went ashore,
taking guns and powder, and knives and scissors to trade with, and the
ship's dog went with us. And, carrying our chest of goods to the house
of one of the natives, we traded, and the negroes brought us such things
as they had in exchange.

But presently we heard a great noise, and a crowd began to gather, so
that we thought the King was coming. But, alas! we soon found that the
people of the town had risen against us, and ten or twelve broke in with
their lances, and killed five of the boat's crew and the man who took
care of the boat! The supercargo, running out of the house to get to the
King, was thrust through by one of these murderous natives, and died
immediately. I myself, being knocked down by the fall of the others, lay
among the dead like one dead.

When the blacks took them up, however, they saw I was alive, and did not
kill me in cold blood, but carried me to the King's house, which was
just by the house where they had killed our men, whose bodies I saw
them carrying down to fling into the sea as I looked out at the King's
door.

He bade me sit down, and ordered the women to bring me some boiled rice
on a plantain leaf, but in my terrible condition I could not eat. At
night the King's men showed me my lodging in a small hut among the
slaves, where I remained till the morning.

[Illustration: Death of the supercargo]

That morning our ship sailed. All the night as she lay there she had
kept firing her great guns, and one shot came into the middle of the
King's house, and went through it.

But when she had sailed I saw some of the blacks with bottles of wine
taken out of the great cabin, which I myself had filled the morning I
went ashore. They had also the captain's sword and the ship's compass,
and some great pieces of the flag tied round their waists. So I asked
those negroes who understood a little English if they had killed any on
board. They said 'Yes,' and told me that the blacks in a canoe that went
to our ship t