Continuing Our Voyage, It Was Our Lot To Overshoot Mozambique, And To Fall In With Quitangone, Two Leagues Farther North,

Where we took three or four barks belonging to the Moors, laden with millet, hens, and ducks, going as provisions

For Mozambique, and having one Portuguese boy on board. These barks are called pangaias in their language.

Within a few days after, we came to an island called Comoro, which we found exceedingly populous, the inhabitants being tawny Moors, of good stature, but very treacherous, and requiring to be sharply looked after. Being desirous of procuring fresh water, of which we stood in great need, we sent sixteen of our men, well armed, on shore, whom the natives allowed very quietly to land and take the water. A good many of them came on board, along with their king, who was dressed in a gown of crimson satin, reaching to the knee, pinked after the Moorish fashion. We entertained him in the best manner we could, and had some conference with him as to the state of the place and merchandise, using the Portuguese boy we had taken as our interpreter. We then dismissed the king and his company courteously, and sent our boat on shore again for water, when also they dispatched their business quietly, and returned. A third time the boat went for the same purpose, and returned unmolested. We now thought ourselves sufficiently provided; but our master, William Mace, of Ratcliff, pretending that it might be long before we should find any good watering-place, would needs go again on shore, much against the will of our captain. He went accordingly with sixteen men in a boat, which were all we had, other sixteen of our men being on shore with our other boat, washing their clothes, directly over against our ship. The perfidious Moors attacked all these men, who were mostly slain in our sight, while we could not yield them the smallest aid, as we had now no boat.

Going from thence with heavy hearts on the 7th November, we shaped our course for the island of Zanzibar, where we arrived shortly after, and there made ourselves a new boat, of such boards as we had in our ship. We continued here till the 15th of February, 1591, during which time we saw several pangaias, or boats, of the Moors, which are pinned with wooden pins, and sewed together with cords made of the palmito, and caulked with the husks of the cocoa-nut, beaten into a substance like oakum. At length a Portuguese pangaia came out of the harbour of Zanzibar, where they have a small factory, and sent a Moor to us who had been christened, bringing with him a letter in a canoe, in which they desired to know what we were, and what was our business. We sent them back word that we were Englishmen, who had come from Don Antonio, upon business to his friends in the East Indies. They returned with this answer to their factory, and would never more look near us.

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