This Island Has A Few Inhabitants, Who Live On The
Sea-Coast At The Foot Of The Mountain, And Subsist On Goats, Fowls,
Plantains, And Cocoa-Nuts.
The other islands of this group are St
Antonio, St Lucia, St Vincent, and Bona Vista.
They sailed thence for the coast of Guinea, and, being near Cape Sierra
Leona, they fell in with a new-built ship of forty guns, well furnished
with water, all kinds of provisions, and brandy, which they boarded and
carried away.[148]
[Footnote 148: They appear to have named this ship the Revenge, and to
have destroyed their original vessel. - E.]
From thence they went to Sherbro river, also on the coast of Guinea,
where they trimmed all their empty casks and filled them with water, not
intending to stop any where again for water till their arrival at Juan
Fernandez in the South Sea. There was at this time an English factory in
the Sherbro river, having a considerable trade in Cam-wood, which is
used in dying red; but the adventurers do not appear to have had any
intercourse with their countrymen at this place. They were well
received, however, by the negro inhabitants of a considerable village
on the sea-shore, near the mouth of this river, who entertained Cowley
and his companions with palm-wine, in a large hut in the middle of the
town, all the rest of the habitations being small low huts. These
negroes also brought off considerable supplies to the ship, of rice,
fowls, honey, and sugar canes, which they sold to the buccaneers for
goods found in the vessel they had seized at Sierra Leona.
Going from thence in the month of December, along the coast of Guinea,
to the latitude of 12 deg. S. they crossed the Atlantic to the opposite
coast of Brazil, where they came to soundings on a sandy bottom at
eighty fathoms deep. Sailing down the coast of Brazil, when in lat. 4 deg.
S. they observed the sea to be as red as blood, occasioned by a
prodigious shoal of red shrimps, which lay upon the water in great
patches for many leagues together. They likewise saw vast numbers of
seals, and a great many whales. Holding on their course to lat. 47 deg. S.
they discovered an island not known before, which Cowley named Pepy's
Island,[149] in honour of Samuel Pepys, secretary to the Duke of York
when Lord High Admiral of England, a great patron of seamen. This island
has a very good harbour, in which 1000 ships might ride at anchor, and
is a very commodious place for procuring both wood and water. It
abounded in sea-fowl, and the shore, being either rocks or sand,
promised fair for fish.
[Footnote 149: An island in the southern Atlantic, in lat. 46 deg. 34' S.
called Isle Grande, is supposed to be the discovery of Cowley.
According to Dalrymple, it is in long. 46 deg. 40' W. while the map
published along with Cook's Voyages places it in long.
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