While
We Staid At This Bay, We Had Such Royal Refreshing That All Our Men
Recovered Their Health And Strength, Except Four Or Five.
Including
these, and before we came in, we lost out of all our ships 105 men; yet,
on leaving this bay,[103] we reckoned ourselves stronger manned than
when we left England, our men were now so well inured to the southern
climates and to the sea.
[Footnote 103: In a marginal note, Purchas gives the lat. of Saldanha
bay as 34 deg. S. The place then called Saldanha bay was certainly Table
bay, the entrance to which is in 33 deg. 50' S. So that Purchas is here
sufficiently, accurate. - E.]
Sec. 2. Continuation of the Voyage, from Saldanha Bay to the Nicobar and
Sombrero Islands.
The general ordered all our tents to be taken down on the 24th of
October, and all our men to repair on board their respective ships,
having laid in an ample supply of wood and water. We put to sea the 29th
of that month, passing a small island in the mouth of the bay, which is
so full of seals and penguins, that if no better refreshment could have
been procured, we might very well have refreshed here. Over the bay of
Saldanha there stands a very high and flat hill, called the Table; no
other harbour on all this coast having so plain a mark to find it by, as
it can be easily seen seventeen or eighteen leagues out at sea. In the
morning of Sunday the 1st November, we doubled the Cape of Good Hope in
a heavy gale at W.N.W.
On the 26th November we fell in with the head-land of the island of St
Lawrence or Madagascar, somewhat to the eastward of cape St Sebastian,
and at five mile from the shore we had 20 fathoms; the variation of the
compass being 16 deg., a little more or less. In an east and west course,
the variation of the compass serves materially, and especially in this
voyage.[104] From the 26th November till the 15th December we plied to
the eastwards, as nearly as we could, always striving to get to the
island of Cisne, called Diego Rodriguez in some charts; but ever from
our leaving Madagascar, we found the wind at E. or E.S.E. or E.N.E. so
that we could not accomplish it, and we could not continue to strive
long in hopes of the wind changing, as our men began again to fall sick
of the scurvy. The captain of our vice-admiral, John Middleton of the
Hector, now proposed to our general to bear away for the bay of
Antongit, on the east coast of Madagascar, where we might refresh our
men with oranges and lemons, so as to get rid again of this cruel
disease; which counsel was approved by him and the whole company.
[Footnote 104: At this period, and for long afterwards, mariners
estimated their longitudes by dead reckonings, or by the observed
variations of the compass; both very uncertain guides.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 97 of 424
Words from 50167 to 50687
of 221842
