About Noon We Were Near The Cape Of Good Hope, To Which We Sailed
In Seventeen Hours From Cape Aguillas.
Being within three leagues of the
sugarloaf, we stood off and on all night.
The 28th I received by the
Dutch boat from the island, six sheep, the fattest I ever saw, the tail
of one being twenty-eight inches broad, and weighing thirty-five pounds.
I got a main-top-sail of the Dutch, of which we were in extreme want,
and gave them a note on our company to receive twelve pounds twelve
shillings for the same. For the fat sheep we got on Penguin island, we
left lean in their room. The Dutch here behaved to us in a very honest
and Christian-like manner. I left a note here of my arrival and the
state of my company, as others had done before me. All the time we
remained at the Cape, from the 23d December, 1609, to the 10th January,
1610, the wind was westerly and southerly; whereas the two former times
of my being here, at the same season, it blew storms at east.
[Footnote 184: This cape is only in lat. 34 deg. 4S' S. So that their
latitude here could not exceed 35 deg. 10', giving an error in excess of
eighteen minutes in the text - E.]
The 10th January, 1610, we weighed and set sail homewards. The 20th
about noon we passed the tropic of Capricorn; and that evening the Dutch
officers came and supped with me, whom I saluted with three guns at
parting. The 30th before day-light, we got sight of St Helena, having
steered sixty-six leagues west in that latitude. We came to anchor a
mile from shore, in twenty-two fathoms sandy ground, N.W. from the
chapel. This island is about 270 or 280 leagues west from the coast of
Africa. We were forced to steer close under the high land to find
anchorage, the bank being so steep as to have no anchorage farther out.
We weighed on the 9th February, making sail homewards, having received
from the island nineteen goats, nine hogs, and thirteen pigs. The 16th
we saw the island of Ascension, seven or eight leagues to the W.S.W. In
the morning of the 28th, the wind westerly and reasonably fair weather,
we spoke the Dutch ship, which made a waft for us at his mizen-top-mast
head. He told us that he had only eight or nine men able for duty, all
the rest being sick, and forty-six of his crew dead. This was a grievous
chastisement for them, who had formerly offered to spare me twenty men
or more upon occasion, and a never-sufficiently-to-be-acknowledged mercy
to us, that they should be in so pitiable a case, while we had not lost
one man, and were even all in good health. Towards night, considering
our leak, with many other just causes on our part, besides our want of
means to aid them, and at my company's earnest desire, we made sail and
left them, not without sensible Christian grief that we could give them
no assistance. Indeed, without asking us to remain by them, they desired
us to acquaint any Dutch ship we might meet of their extreme distress,
that the best means might be pursued for their relief. We were then in
lat. 45 deg. 6' N.
The 1st May, having fine weather and the wind at S.W. we were in lat.
49 deg. 13' N. Early in the morning of the 2d, the wind came S. and blew a
storm, putting us under our fore course. Towards night we spoke a
Lubecker, who told us Scilly bore E. by N. thirty-eight German miles
from us, which are fifty leagues. I told them of the Dutchman's
distress; and as the wind was fair, made sail for England. In the
morning of the 9th, Beechy-head was three leagues from us N.N.E. and on
the 10th May, 1610, we anchored in the Downs about sunset, having spent
three years, one month, and nine days on this voyage.
* * * * *
SECTION V.
Narrative by William Hawkins, of Occurrences during his Residence in
the Dominions of the Great Mogul.[185]
INTRODUCTION.
This and the next following section may be considered as supplementary
to the one immediately preceding; as Captain Hawkins in the Dragon
accompanied Captain Keeling, in the third voyage fitted out by the
English Company; and Finch was in the same vessel with Hawkins, and
accompanied him into the country of the Mogul. The present narrative is
said, in its title in the Pilgrims, to have been written to the company,
and evidently appears to have been penned by Hawkins himself, without
any semblance of having been subjected to the rude pruning knife of
Purchas; except omitting so much of the journal as related to
occurrences before landing at Surat. Purchas gives the following account
of it in a side-note. - E.
[Footnote 185: Purch. Pilg. I. 206.]
"Captain Keeling and William Hawkins had kept company all the
outward-bound voyage, as already related, and therefore not necessary to
be here repeated, to the road of Delisa, in Socotora, whence, on the
24th June, 1603, Captain Keeling departed in the Dragon, as before
related. Captain Hawkins sailed from Delisa in the Hector, for Surat, on
the 4th August, having previously built a pinnace, and having received
from the general, Captain Keeling, a duplicate of the commission under
the great seal." - Purch.
Sec. 1. Barbarous Usage at Surat by Mucrob Khan; and the treacherous
Procedure of the Portuguese and Jesuits.
Arriving at the bar of Surat on the 24th August, 1608, I immediately
sent Francis Bucke, merchant, and two others, on shore, to make known
that I was sent by the King of England, as his ambassador to the king of
the country, together with a letter and present. In answer, I received a
message from the governor, by three of his servants accompanying those I
sent, saying, he and all that country could afford were at my command,
and that I should be made very welcome if I pleased to come on shore.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 95 of 218
Words from 95904 to 96945
of 221842
