The 10th Of The Same Month We Came In Sight Of Porto Sancto Near
Madeira, Where An English Ship Set Upon Ours, Now Entirely Alone, And
Fired Several Shots Which Did Us No Harm:
But when our ship had run out
her largest ordnance, the English ship made away from us.
This English
ship was large and handsome, and I was sorry to see her so ill
occupied, as she went roving about the seas, and we met her again at the
Canaries, where we arrived on the 13th of the same month of April, and
had good opportunity to wonder at the high peaked mountain in the island
of Teneriffe, as we beat about between that island and Grand Canary for
four days with contrary winds, and indeed had such evil weather till the
14th of May, that we despaired of being able to double the Cape of Good
Hope that year. Yet, taking our course between Guinea and the Cape de
Verd islands, without seeing any land at all, we arrived at the coast of
Guinea, as the Portuguese call that part of the western coast of Africa
in the torrid zone, from the lat. of 6 deg. N. to the equinoctial; in which
parts they suffer so much by extreme heats and want of wind, that they
think themselves happy when past it. Sometimes the ships stand quite
still and becalmed for many days, and sometimes they go on, but in such
a manner that they had almost as good stand still. The atmosphere on the
greatest part of this coast is never clear, but thick and cloudy, full
of thunder and lightening, and such unwholesome rain, that the water on
standing only a little while is full of animalculae, and by falling on
any meat that is hung out, fills it immediately with worms.
All along that coast, we oftentimes saw a thing swimming in the water
like a cocks comb but much fairer, which they call a _Guinea ship_[399].
It is borne up in the water by a substance almost like the swimming
bladder of a fish in size and colour, having many strings from it under
water, which prevent it from being overturned. It is so poisonous, that
one cannot touch it without much danger. On this coast, between the
sixth degree of north latitude and the equator, we spent no less than
thirty days either in calms or contrary winds. The 30th of May we
crossed the line with great difficulty, directing our course as well as
we could to pass the promontory[400], but in all that gulf of Guinea,
and all the rest of the way to the Cape, we found such frequent calms
that the most experienced mariners were much astonished. In places where
there always used to be horrible tempests, we found most invincible
calms, which were very troublesome to our ships, which being of the
greatest size cannot go without good winds; insomuch that when it is
almost an intolerable tempest for other ships, making them furl all
their sails, those large ships display their sails to the wind and sail
excellent well, unless the waves be too furious, which seldom happened
in our voyage. You must understand that, when once past the line, they
cannot go direct for the Cape the nearest way, but, according to the
wind, must hold on as near south as they can till in the latitude of the
Cape, which is 35 deg. 30' S. They then shape their course to the east, and
so get round the Cape. But the wind so served us at 33 degrees, that we
directed our course thence for the Cape.
[Footnote 399: Otherwise called, by the English sailors, a Portuguese
man-of-war. - E.]
[Footnote 400: The Cape of Good Hope must be here meant. - E.]
You know that it is hard to sail from east to west, or the contrary,
because there is no fixed point in all the sky by which they can direct
their course, wherefore I shall tell you what help God hath provided to
direct them. There is not a fowl that appeareth, neither any sign in the
air or in the sea, that have not been written down by those who have
formerly made these voyages; so that partly by their own experience,
judging what space the ship was able to make with such and such a wind,
and partly by the experience of others recorded in the books of
navigations which they have, they guess whereabouts they may be in
regard to longitude, for they are always sure as to latitude. But the
greatest and best direction of all is, to mark the variation of the
needle or mariners compass; which, in the meridian of the island of St
Michael, one of the Azores in the same latitude with Lisbon, points due
north, and thence swerveth so much towards the east, that, between the
foresaid meridian and the extreme south point of Africa, it varieth
three or four of the thirty-two points. Again, having passed a little
beyond the cape called _das Agulias_, or of the Needles, it returneth
again towards the north; and when it hath attained that, it swerveth
again toward the west proportionally, as it did before eastwards.
In regard to the first mentioned signs from fowls: The nearer we came to
the coast of Africa, the more kinds and greater number of strange fowls
appeared; insomuch that, when we came within not less than thirty
leagues, almost 100 miles, and 600 miles as we thought from any other
land, as good as 3000 fowls of sundry kinds followed our ship; some of
them so great, that, when their wings were opened, they measured seven
spans from point to point of their wings, as the sailors said. It is a
marvellous thing to think how God hath so provided for these fowls in
so vast an expanse of sea, that they are all fat.
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