There Is Here A Fort
On The Top Of A Hill, Which Commands The Harbour.
This island has two
towns of some size, and produces the same sort of wine with St Nicholas.
There are two other islands, Fogo and Brava, both small, and to the west
of St Jago. Fogo is remarkable, as being an entire burning mountain,
from the top of which issues a fire which may be seen a great way off at
sea in the night. 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. 35 deg. 40' W. from
Greenwich. - E.]
In January 1684 they bore away for the Straits of Magellan, and on the
28th of that month fell in with the Sebaldine or Falkland islands, in
lat. 51 deg. 25' S. Then steering S.W. by W. to the lat. of 53 deg. S. they made
the Terra del Fuego. Finding great ripplings near the Straits of Le
Maire, they resolved to go round the east end of States Land, as had
been done by Captain Sharp in 1681, who first discovered it to be an
island, naming it Albemarle island. A prodigious storm came on upon
the 14th February, which lasted between a fortnight and three weeks, and
drove them into lat. 63 deg. 30' S. This storm was attended by such torrents
of rain, that they saved twenty-three barrels of water, besides dressing
their victuals all that time in rain water.[150] The weather also was so
excessively cold, that they could bear to drink three quarts of burnt
brandy a man in twenty-four hours, without being intoxicated.
[Footnote 150: It was discovered by the great navigator Captain Cook,
who at one time penetrated to lat. 71 deg. 10' S. that the solid ice found
at sea in high southern latitudes affords perfectly fresh water, when
the first meltings are thrown away. - E.]
When the storm abated, they steered N.E. being then considerably to the
west of Cape Horn, and got again into warm weather. In lat. 40 deg. S. they
fell in with an English ship, the Nicholas of London, of 26 guns,
commanded by Captain John Eaton, with whom they joined company. They
sailed together to the island of Juan Fernandez, where they arrived on
the 23d March, and anchored in a bay at the south end of the island in
twenty-five fathoms. Captain Watling, who succeeded Captain Sharp, was
there in 1680, and named it Queen Catharine's island. At his
departure, he accidentally left a Moskito Indian, who still remained,
having a gun, a knife, a small flask of powder, and some shot. In this
desolate condition, he found it equally hard to provide for his
subsistence, and to conceal himself from the Spaniards, who had notice
of his being left there, and came several times to take him. He had
chosen a pleasant valley for his residence, about half a mile from the
coast, where he had erected a very convenient hut, well lined with
seal-skins, and had a bed of the same, raised about two feet above the
ground.
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