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.
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