Their weapons are spears or half
pikes, headed with iron, which they keep very clear; and they go quite
naked. The soil appeared very fertile, and we saw a vast number of
tamarind trees. We found another high tree producing beans very good to
eat, in pods two feet long, and the beans of a proportional size. We saw
here many cameleons. We English suffered no small misery, especially in
this bay: but God, the ever living commander, was our only succour.
[Footnote 35: This, it must be noticed, was in the year 1599. The
variation alters progressively, increasing to a maximum in one
deflexion; it then retrogrades till it points true north, which it
progressively overpasses in the opposite deflexion to a maximum again.
But these changes do not proceed with sufficient regularity to admit of
being predicted with any certainty. - E.]
This 8th of March we came on board hungry and meatless, and on the 14th
we set sail from this place, which we called Hungry bay, shaping our
coarse to the northward along the west side of the island. The 29th, we
came to the islands of Comoro, between 12 deg. and 13 deg.
