Calms and much rain.
Finding the May-flower delayed us much, and that our pilots were either
ignorant or malicious, we resolved to trust to our own endeavours for
finding an anchoring place, for our safe riding till the strength of the
adverse monsoon was over, for which purpose we determined upon going to
Macera.[300]
[Footnote 300: From the latitude of this place, mentioned afterwards in
the text, this seems to refer to Mazica, an island about sixty miles
long and fifteen or twenty in breadth, a few miles from the oceanic
coast of Arabia, in lat. 20 deg. 48' N. and long. 57 deg. 3O' E. from
Greenwich. - E.]
We descried land on the 2d June, and anchored in seventeen fathoms three
miles offshore, in lat. 20 deg. 20' N. variation 17 deg. W. We found plenty of
water in four or five pits, three quarters of a mile from the shore. I
had forty tons from one well, which we rolled in hogsheads to the beach.
The people were tractable, but we got little else besides water. A tuft
of date trees by the watering place bore N.W. by W. from our anchorage,
and the other end of the island N.E. 1/2 E. five leagues off.
