Ships That Go Round
The Cape Of Good Hope From India, At This Season Of The Year, Ought Not
To Anchor Short Of Saldanha Road, [Table Bay,] But Ought To Bear To
Leeward For Penguin Island, And Anchor There With Two Anchors At Once,
Till The Wind Serve.
In December, January, and February, the S.S.E. wind
blows there with great violence from new to full moon.
Yet I hold it
dangerous to neglect this place, trusting to refreshments at St Helena,
a certainty for an uncertainty; as the obscurity of the sun and moon,
owing to thick mists at this season, may disappoint the most experienced
navigators, and occasion the loss of ship, cargo, and men. While at the
Cape, Corey came down with three sheep, and promised more, but went away
in great haste to his wife and family, who dwelt now farther from the
bay than formerly. It appears that the Hollanders had frightened the
natives, by landing and going up the country with above an hundred men
at once. Owing to this, our chief refreshment here was fresh fish.
The 9th April 1617, we passed through great quantities of sea-weeds,
called seragasso, which float in long ridges or rows along with the
wind, and at considerable distances from each other. This plant has a
leaf like samphire, but not so thick, and carries a very small yellow
berry. It reaches from 22 deg. 20' to 32 deg. both of N. latitude. We anchored
in the Downs on the 29th of May 1617.
3. Brief Notice of the Ports, Cities, and Towns, inhabited by, and
traded with, by the Portuguese between the Cape of Good Hope and Japan,
in 1616.
The river of Quame, or Cuamo, on the eastern coast of Africa, where
they are said to trade yearly for gold, elephants teeth, ambergris, and
slaves. Mozambique, an island on the same coast, where they trade for
gold, ambergris, and slaves, in barter for iron, lead, tin, and Cambay
commodities, Magadoxo, which has abundance of elephants teeth, some
ambergris, and various kinds of drugs. From these ports they trade
yearly to Cambay, the Red Sea, and other places, observing the monsoons,
which blow W. in April, May, June, July, August, and part of September,
and the E. monsoon prevails an the other months. A few days between the
cessation of one monsoon and the commencement of the other, the winds
are variable, attended by calms, but become regular in a few days. To
the east of Sumatra, however, the two monsoons continue only five months
each way, the two intermediate months having variable winds.
Ormus in the gulf of Persia, whence the Portuguese trade to Persia,
Diul-sinde, Arabia, &c. They fetch much pearl from Bassora;[178] and
they load a ship or two with Persian commodities for Diul-sinde, where
they arrive between the end of August and middle of September, taking
likewise with them great store of dollars. Ormus is their best place in
the Indies except Goa.
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