But On Our Sudden Arrival, These Others Did Not
Go, And We Went As Originally Intended.
The 4th of April, five ships departed for Goa, in which, besides
mariners and soldiers, there were a great number of children, who bear
the sea much better than men, as also do many women.
I need not tell
you, as you may easily imagine the solemnity of setting out, with sound
of trumpets and discharges of cannon, as they go forth in a warlike
manner. The 10th of the same month we came in sight of Porto Sancto near
Madeira, where an English ship set upon ours, now entirely alone, and
fired several shots which did us no harm: But when our ship had run out
her largest ordnance, the English ship made away from us. This English
ship was large and handsome, and I was sorry to see her so ill
occupied, as she went roving about the seas, and we met her again at the
Canaries, where we arrived on the 13th of the same month of April, and
had good opportunity to wonder at the high peaked mountain in the island
of Teneriffe, as we beat about between that island and Grand Canary for
four days with contrary winds, and indeed had such evil weather till the
14th of May, that we despaired of being able to double the Cape of Good
Hope that year. Yet, taking our course between Guinea and the Cape de
Verd islands, without seeing any land at all, we arrived at the coast of
Guinea, as the Portuguese call that part of the western coast of Africa
in the torrid zone, from the lat. of 6 deg. N. to the equinoctial; in which
parts they suffer so much by extreme heats and want of wind, that they
think themselves happy when past it. Sometimes the ships stand quite
still and becalmed for many days, and sometimes they go on, but in such
a manner that they had almost as good stand still. The atmosphere on the
greatest part of this coast is never clear, but thick and cloudy, full
of thunder and lightening, and such unwholesome rain, that the water on
standing only a little while is full of animalculae, and by falling on
any meat that is hung out, fills it immediately with worms.
All along that coast, we oftentimes saw a thing swimming in the water
like a cocks comb but much fairer, which they call a _Guinea ship_[399].
It is borne up in the water by a substance almost like the swimming
bladder of a fish in size and colour, having many strings from it under
water, which prevent it from being overturned. It is so poisonous, that
one cannot touch it without much danger. On this coast, between the
sixth degree of north latitude and the equator, we spent no less than
thirty days either in calms or contrary winds. The 30th of May we
crossed the line with great difficulty, directing our course as well as
we could to pass the promontory[400], but in all that gulf of Guinea,
and all the rest of the way to the Cape, we found such frequent calms
that the most experienced mariners were much astonished.
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