THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES
OF
ROBINSON CRUSOE
PART 23
I was most sensibly touched with this disaster, though not at all acquainted with the persons engaged in it; I presently recollected my former circumstances, in what condition I was in when taken up by the Portugal captain; and how much more deplorable the circumstances of the poor creatures belonging to this ship must be if they had no other ship in company with them: upon this I immediately ordered that five guns should be fired, one soon after another, that, if possible, we might give notice to them that there was help for them at hand, and that they might endeavour to save themselves in their boat; for though we could see the flame in the ship, yet they, it being night, could see nothing of us.
We lay by some time upon this, only driving as the burning ship drove, waiting for daylight; when on a sudden, to our great terror, though we had reason to expect it, the ship blew up in the air, and immediately sunk. This was terrible, and indeed an afflicting sight, for the sake of the poor men, who, I concluded, must be either all destroyed in the ship, or be in the utmost distress in their boats in the middle of the ocean, which, at present, by reason it was dark, I could not see: however, to direct them as well as I could, I caused lights to be hung out in all the parts of the ship where we could, and which we had lanterns for, and kept firing guns all the night long; letting them know by this, that there was a ship not far off.
About eight o'clock in the morning we discovered the ship's boats, by the help of our perspective-glasses; and found there were two of them, both thronged with people, and deep in the water; we perceived they rowed, the wind being against them; that they saw our ship, and did the utmost to make us see them.
We immediately spread our ancient, to let them know we saw them; and hung a waft out, as a signal for them to come on board; and then made more sail, standing directly to them. In a little more than half an hour we came up with them, and in a word took them all in, being no less than sixty-four men, women, and children; for there were a great many passengers.
Upon the whole, we found it was a French merchant-ship of three hundred tons, homeward-bound from Quebec, in the river of Canada. The master gave us a long account of the distress of his ship, how the fire began in the steerage by the negligence of the steersman; but, on his crying out for help, was, as everybody thought, entirely put out: but they soon found that some sparks of the first fire had gotten into some part of the ship, so difficult to come at, that they could not effectually quench it; and afterwards getting in between the timbers, and within the ceiling of the ship, it proceeded into the hold, and mastered all the skill and all the application they were able to exert.
They had no more to do then but to get into their boats, which, to their great comfort, were pretty large; being their long-boat, and a great shallop, besides a small skiff, which was of no great service to them, other than to get some fresh water and provisions into her, after they had secured themselves from the fire. They had indeed small hope of their lives by getting into these boats at that distance from any land; only, as they said well, that they were escaped from the fire, and had a possibility, that some ship might happen to be at sea, and might take them in. They had sails, oars, and a compass; and were preparing to make the best of their way to Newfoundland, the wind blowing pretty fair; for it blew an easy gale at S.E. by E. They had as much provisions and water, as, with sparing it so as to be next door to starving, might support them about twelve days; in which, if they had no bad weather, and no contrary winds, the captain said, he hoped he might get to the banks of Newfoundland, and might perhaps take some fish to sustain them till they might go on shore. But there were so many chances against them in all these cases; such as storms to overset and founder them; rains and cold to benumb and perish their limbs; contrary winds to keep them out and starve them; that it must have been next to miraculous if they had escaped.
In the midst of their consultations, every one being hopeless, and ready to despair, the captain with tears in his eyes told me, they were on a sudden surprised with the joy of hearing a gun fire, and after that four more; these were the five guns which I caused to be fired at first seeing the light: this revived their hearts, and gave them the notice which, as above, I designed it should, viz. that there was a ship at hand for their help.
It was upon the hearing these guns, that they took down their masts and sails; and the sound coming from the windward, they resolved to lie by till morning. Some time after this, hearing no more guns, they fired three muskets, one a considerable while after another; but these, the wind being contrary, we never heard.
Some time after that again, they were still more agreeably surprised with seeing our lights, and hearing the guns, which, as I have said, I caused to be fired all the rest of the night: this set them to work with their oars to keep their boats ahead, at least that we might the sooner come up with them; and at last, to their inexpressible joy, they found we saw them.
It is impossible for me to express the several gestures, the strange ecstasies, the variety of postures, which these poor delivered people ran into, to express the joy of their souls at so unexpected a deliverance; grief and fear are easily described; sighs, tears, groans, and a very few motions of head and hands, make up the sum of its variety: but an excess of joy, a surprise of joy, has a thousand extravagances in it; there were some in tears, some raging and tearing themselves, as if they had been in the greatest agonies of sorrow; some stark raving and downright lunatic; some ran about the ship stamping with their feet, others wringing their hands; some were dancing, several singing, some laughing, more crying; many quite dumb, not able to speak a word; others sick and vomiting, several swooning, and ready to faint; and a few were crossing themselves and giving God thanks.
I would not wrong them neither; there might be many that were thankful afterward; but the passion was too strong for them at first, and they were not able to master it; they were thrown into ecstasies and a kind of frenzy, and so there were but a very few who were composed and serious in their joy.
Perhaps also the case may have some addition to it, from the particular circumstance of the nation they belonged to; I mean the French, whose temper is allowed to be more volatile, more passionate, and more sprightly, and their spirits more fluid, than of other nations. I am not philosopher to determine the cause, but nothing I had ever seen before came up to it: the ecstasies poor Friday, my trusty savage, was in, when he found his father in the boat, came the nearest to it; and the surprise of the master, and his two companions, whom I delivered from the two villains that set them on shore in the island, came a little way towards it; but nothing was to compare to this, either that I saw in Friday, or any where else in my life.
It is farther observable, that these extravagances did not shew themselves in that different manner I have mentioned, in different persons only: but all the variety would appear in a short succession of moments, in one and the same person. A man that we saw this minute dumb, and, as it were, stupid and confounded, should the next minute be dancing and hallooing like an antic; and the next moment a-tearing his hair, or pulling his clothes to pieces, and stamping them under his feet like a madman; a few minutes after that, we should have him all in tears, then sick, then swooning; and had not immediate help been had, would in a few moments more have been dead; and thus it was, not with one or two, or ten or twenty, but with the greatest part of them; and, if I remember right, our surgeon was obliged to let above thirty of them blood.
There were two priests among them, one an old man, and the other a young man; and that which was strangest was, that the oldest man was the worst.
As soon as he set his foot on board our ship, and saw himself safe, he dropped down stone dead, to all appearance; not the least sign of life could be perceived in him; our surgeon immediately applied proper remedies to recover him; and was the only man in the ship that believed he was not dead: and at length he opened a vein in his arm, having first chafed and rubbed the part, so as to warm it as much as possible: upon this the blood, which only dropped at first, flowed something freely; in three minutes after the man opened his eyes; and about a quarter of an hour after that he spoke, grew better, and, in a little time, quite well; after the blood was stopped he walked about, told us he was perfectly well, took a dram of cordial which the surgeon gave him, and was, what we called, come to himself; about a quarter of an hour after this they came running into the cabin to the surgeon, who was bleeding a French woman that had fainted, and told him the priest was gone stark mad. It seems he had begun to revolve the change of his circumstances in his mind, and this put him into an ecstasy of joy: his spirits whirled about faster than the vessels could convey them; the blood grew hot and feverish; and the man was as fit for Bedlam as any creature that ever was in it; the surgeon would not bleed him again in that condition, but gave him something to doze and put him to sleep, which, after some time, operated upon him, and he waked next morning perfectly composed and well.
The younger priest behaved himself with great command of his passion, and was really an example of a serious, well-governed mind; at his first coming on board the ship, he threw himself flat on his face, prostrating himself in thankfulness for his deliverance; in which I unhappily and unseasonably disturbed him, really thinking he had been in a swoon: but he spoke calmly; thanked me; told me he was giving God thanks for his deliverance; begged me to leave him a few moments, and that next to his Maker he would give me thanks also.
I was heartily sorry that I disturbed him, and not only left him, but kept others from interrupting him also; he continued in that posture about three minutes, or a little more, after I left him, then came to me, as he had said he would, and with a great deal of seriousness and affection, but with tears in his eyes, thanked me that had, under God, given him and so many miserable creatures their lives: I told him, I had no room to move him to thank God for it rather than me; for I had seen that he had done that already: but I added, that it was nothing but what reason and humanity dictated to all men, and that we had as much reason as he to give thanks to God, who had blessed us so far as to make us the instruments of his mercy to so many of his creatures.
After this the young priest applied himself to his country-folks; laboured to compose them; persuaded, entreated, argued, reasoned with them, and did his utmost to keep them within the exercise of their reason; and with some he had success, though others were, for a time, out of all government of themselves.
I cannot help committing this to writing, as perhaps it may be useful to those into whose hands it may fall, in the guiding themselves in all the extravagances of their passions; for if an excess of joy can carry men out to such a length beyond the reach of their reason, what will not the extravagances of anger, rage, and a provoked mind, carry us to? And, indeed, here I saw reason for keeping an exceeding watch over our passions of every kind, as well those of joy and satisfaction, as those of sorrow and anger.
We were something disordered by these extravagances among our new guests for the first day; but when they had been retired, lodings provided for them as well as our ship would allow, and they had slept heartily, as most of them did, being fatigued and frightened, they were quite another sort of people the next day.
Nothing of good manners, or civil acknowledgments for the kindness shown them, was wanting; the French, it is known, are naturally apt enough to exceed that way. The captain and one of the priests came to me the next day; and, desiring to speak with me and my nephew, the commander, began to consult with us what should be done with them; and first they told us, that as we had saved their lives, so all they had was little enough for a return to us for the kindness received. The captain said, they had saved some money, and some things of value in their boats, catched hastily out of the flames: and if we would accept it, they were ordered to make an offer of it all to us; they only desired to be set on shore somewhere in our way, where, if possible, they might get a passage to France.
My nephew was for accepting their money at first word, and to consider what to do with them afterwards; but I overruled him in that part; for I knew what it was to be set on shore in a strange country; and if the Portugal captain that took me up at sea had served me so, and took all I had for my deliverance, I must have starved, or have been as much a slave at the Brasils as I had been at Barbary, the being sold to a Mahometan only excepted; and perhaps a Portuguese is not a much better master than a Turk, if not, in some cases, a much worse.
I therefore told the French captain that we had taken them up in their distress, it was true; but that it was our duty to do so, as we were fellow-creatures, and as we would desire to be so delivered, if we were in the like or any other extremity; that we had done nothing for them but what we believed they would have done for us if we had been in their case and they in ours; but that we took them up to serve them, not to plunder them; and that it would be a most barbarous thing, to take that little from them which they had saved out of the fire, and then set them on shore and leave them; that this would be first to save them from death and then kill them ourselves; save them from drowning and then abandon them to starving; and therefore I would not let the least thing be taken from them: as to setting them on shore, I told them indeed that was an exceeding difficulty to us, for that the ship was bound to the East Indies; and though we were driven out of our course to the westward a very great way, which perhaps was directed by Heaven on purpose for their deliverance, yet it was impossible for us wilfully to change our voyage on this particular account; nor could my nephew, the captain, answer it to the freighters, with whom he was under charter-party to pursue his voyage by the way of Brasil; and all I knew he could do for them was, to put ourselves in the way of meeting with other ships homeward-bound from the West Indies, and get them passage, if possible, to England or France.
The first part of the proposal was so generous and kind, they could not but be very thankful for it; but they were in a great consternation, especially the passengers, at the notion of being carried away to the East Indies: they then entreated me, that seeing I was driven so far to the westward before I met with them, I would at least keep on the same course to the banks of Newfoundland, where it was possible I might meet some ship or sloop that they might hire to carry them back to Canada, from whence they came.
I thought this was but a reasonable request on their part, and therefore I inclined to agree to it; for indeed I considered, that to carry this whole company to the East Indies would not only be an intolerable severity to the poor people, but would be ruining our voyage by devouring all our provisions; so I thought it no breach of charter-party, but what an unforeseen accident made absolutely necessary to us; and in which no one could say we were to blame; for the laws of God and nature would have forbid, that we should refuse to take up two boats full of people in such a distressed condition; and the nature of the thing, as well respecting ourselves as the poor people, obliged us to see them on shore somewhere or other, for their deliverance; so I consented that we would carry them to Newfoundland, if wind and weather would permit; and, if not, that I would carry them to Martinico in the West Indies.
The wind continued fresh easterly, but the weather pretty good; and as it had blowed continually in the points between N.E. and S.E. a long time, we missed several opportunities of sending them to France; for we met several ships bound to Europe, whereof two were French, from St. Christopher's; but they had been so long beating up against the wind, that they durst take in no passengers for fear of wanting provisions for the voyage, as well for themselves as for those they should take in; so we were obliged to go on. It was about a week after this, that we made the banks of Newfoundland, where, to shorten my story, we put all our French people on board a bark, which they hired at sea there, to put them on shore, and afterwards to carry them to France, if they could get provisions to victual themselves with: when, I say, all the French went on shore, I should remember that the young priest I spoke of, hearing we were bound to the East Indies, desired to go the voyage with us, and to be set on shore on the coast of Coromandel: I readily agreed to that; for I wonderfully liked the man, and had very good reason, as will appear afterwards; also four of the seamen entered themselves in our ship, and proved very useful fellows.
From hence we directed our course for the West Indies, steering away S. and S. by E. for about twenty days together, sometimes little or no wind at all, when we met with another subject for our humanity to work upon, almost as deplorable as that before.
It was in the latitude of 27 degrees 5 minutes N. and the 19th day of March 1684--5, when we espied a sail, our course S.E. and by S. We soon perceived it was a large vessel, and that she bore up to us; but could not at first know what to make of her, till, after coming a little nearer, we found she had lost her main-topmast, fore-mast, and bowsprit; and presently she fires a gun as a signal of distress. The weather was pretty good, wind at N.N.W. a fresh gale, and we soon came to speak with her.
We found her a ship of Bristol bound home from Barbadoes, but had been blown out of the road at Barbadoes, a few days before she was ready to sail, by a terrible hurricane, while the captain and chief mate were both gone on shore; so that beside the terror of the storm, they were but in an indifferent case for good artists to bring the ship home; they had been already nine weeks at sea, and had met with another terrible storm after the hurricane was over, which had blown them quite out of their knowledge to the westward, and in which they had lost their masts, as above; they told us, they expected to have seen the Bahama Islands, but were then driven away again to the south-east by a strong gale of wind at N.N.W. the same that blew now, and having no sails to work the ship with, but a main-course, and a kind of square sail upon a jury-foremast, which they had set up, they could not lie near the wind, but were endeavouring to stand away for the Canaries.
But that which was worst of all, was, that they were almost starved for want of provisions, besides the fatigues they had undergone; their bread and flesh was quite gone, they had not an ounce left in the ship, and had had none for eleven days; the only relief they had, was, their water was not all spent, and they had about half a barrel of flour left; they had sugar enough; some succades or sweetmeats they had at first, but they were devoured; and they had seven casks of rum.
There was a youth and his mother, and a maid-servant, on board, who were going passengers, and thinking the ship was ready to sail, unhappily came on board the evening before the hurricane began; and having no provisions of their own left, they were in a more deplorable condition than the rest; for the seamen, being reduced to such an extreme necessity themselves, had no compassion, we may be sure, for the poor passengers; and they were indeed in a condition that their misery is very hard to describe.
I had perhaps not known this part, if my curiosity had not led me, the weather being fair, and the wind abated, to go on board the ship: the second mate, who upon this occasion commanded the ship, had been on board our ship; and he told me indeed, that they had three passengers in the great cabin, that they were in a deplorable condition; "Nay," says he, "I believe they are dead, for I have heard nothing of them for above two days; and I was afraid to inquire after them," said he, "for I had nothing to relieve them with."
We immediately applied ourselves to give them what relief we could spare; and indeed I had so far overruled things with my nephew, that I would have victualled them, though we had gone away to Virginia, or any part of the coast of America, to have supplied ourselves; but there was no necessity for that.
But now they were in a new danger, for they were afraid of eating too much, even of that little we gave them. The mate or commander brought six men with him in his boat, but these poor wretches looked like skeletons, and were so weak they could hardly sit to their oars; the mate himself was very ill, and half-starved, for he declared he had reserved nothing from the men, and went share and share alike with them in every bit they ate.
I cautioned him to eat sparingly, but set meat before him immediately, and he had not eaten three mouthfuls before he began to be sick, and out of order; so he stopped awhile, and our surgeon mixed him up something with some broth, which he said would be to him both food and physic; and after he 7 had taken it, he grew better: in the meantime I forgot not the men; I ordered victuals to be given them, and the poor creatures rather devoured than ate it; they were so exceeding hungry, that they were in a manner ravenous, and had no command of themselves; and two of them ate with so much greediness, that they were in danger of their lives the next morning.
The sight of these people's distress was very moving to me, and brought to mind what I had a terrible respect of at my first coming on shore in my island, where I had not the least mouthful of food, or any hopes of procuring it; besides the hourly apprehension I had of being made the food of other creatures. But all the while the mate was thus relating to me the miserable condition of the ship's company, I could not put out of my thought the story he had told me of the three poor creatures in the great cabin; viz. the mother, her son, and the maid-servant, whom he had heard nothing of for two or three days; and whom he seemed to confess they had wholly neglected, their own extremities being so great; by which I understood that they had really given them no food at all; and that therefore they must be perished, and be all lying dead perhaps on the floor or deck of the cabin.
As I therefore kept the mate, whom we then called captain, on board with his men to refresh them, so I also forgot not the starving crew that were left on board, but ordered my own boat to go on board the ship and with my mate and twelve men to carry them a sack of bread, and four or five pieces of beef to boil. Our surgeon charged the men to cause the meat to be boiled while they stayed, and to keep guard in the cook-room, to prevent the men's taking it to eat raw, or taking it out of the pot before it was well boiled, and then to give every man but a little at a time; and by this caution he preserved the men, who would otherwise have killed themselves with that very food that was given them on purpose to save their lives.
At the same time I ordered the mate to go into the great cabin, and see what condition the poor passengers were in, and, if they were alive, to comfort them and give them what refreshment was proper; and the surgeon gave him a large pitcher with some of the prepared broth which he had given the mate that was on board, and which he did not question would restore them gradually.
I was not satisfied with this; but, as I said above, having a great mind to see the scene of misery, which I knew the ship itself would present me with, in a more lively manner than I could have it by report, I took the captain of the ship, as we now called him, with me, and went myself a little after in their boat.
I found the poor men on board almost in a tumult to get the victuals out of the boiler before it was ready; but my mate observed his order, and kept a good guard at the cook-room door; and the man he placed there, after using all possible persuasion to have patience, kept them off by force: however, he caused some biscuit cakes to be dipped in the pot, and softened them with the liquor of the meat, which they call brewis, and gave every one one, to stay their stomachs, and told them it was for their own safety that he was obliged to give them but little at a time. But it was all in vain, and had I not come on board, and their own commander and officers with me, and with good words, and some threats also of giving them no more, I believe they would have broke into the cook-room by force, and torn the meat out of the furnace; for words indeed are of a very small force to an hungry belly: however, we pacified them, and fed them gradually and cautiously for the first time, and the next time gave them more, and at last filled their bellies, and the men did well enough.
But the misery of the poor passengers in the cabin was of another nature, and far beyond the rest; for as, first, the ship's company had so little for themselves, it was but too true, that they had at first kept them very low, and at last totally neglected them; so that for six or seven days, it might be said, they had really had no food at all, and for several days before, very little.
The poor mother, who, as the first mate reported, was a woman of good sense and good breeding, had spared all she could get so affectionately for her son, that at last she entirely sunk under it; and when the mate of our ship went in, she sat upon the floor or deck, with her back up against the sides, between two chairs, which were lashed fast, and her head sunk in between her shoulders, like a corpse, though not quite dead. My mate said all he could to revive and encourage her, and with a spoon put some broth into her mouth; she opened her lips, and lifted up one hand, but could not speak: yet she understood what he said, and made signs to him, intimating, that it was too late for her; but pointed to her child, as if she would have said, they should take care of him.
However, the mate, who was exceedingly moved with the sight, endeavoured to get some of the broth into her mouth; and, as he said, got two or three spoonfuls down, though I question whether he could be sure of it or not; but it was too late, and she died the same night.
The youth, who was preserved at the price of his most affectionate mother's life, was not so far gone; yet he lay in a cabin-bed as one stretched out, with hardly any life left in him; he had a piece of an old glove in his mouth, having eaten up the rest of it; however, being young, and having more strength than his mother, the mate got something down his throat, and he began sensibly to revive, though, by giving him some time after but two or three spoonfuls extraordinary, he was very sick, and brought it up again.
But the next care was the poor maid; she lay all along upon the deck hard by her mistress, and just like one that had fallen down with an apoplexy, and struggled for life: her limbs were distorted, one of her hands was clasped round the frame of one chair, and she griped it so hard, that we could not easily make her let it go; her other arm lay over her head, and her feet lay both together, set fast against the frame of the cabin-table; in short, she lay just like one in the last agonies of death; and yet she was alive too.
The poor creature was not only starved with hunger, and terrified with the thoughts of death, but, as the men told us afterwards, was broken-hearted for her mistress, whom she saw dying two or three days before, and whom she loved most tenderly.
We knew not what to do with this poor girl; for when our surgeon, who was a man of very great knowledge and experience, and with great application recovered her as to life, he had her upon his hand as to her senses, for she was little less than distracted for a considerable time after; as shall appear presently.
Whoever shall read these memorandums, must be desired to consider, that visits at sea are not like a journey into the country, where sometimes people stay a week or a fortnight at a place. Our business was to relieve this distressed ship's crew, but not lie by for them; and though they were willing to steer the same course with us for some days, yet we could carry no sail to keep pace with a ship that had no masts: however, as their captain begged of us to help him to set up a main-topmast, and a kind of topmast to his jury-foremast, we did, as it were, lie by him for three or four days, and then having given him five barrels of beef and pork, two hogsheads of biscuit, and a proportion of peas, flour, and what other things we could spare; and taking three casks of sugar and some rum, and some pieces of eight of them for satisfaction, we left them, taking on board with us, at their own earnest request, the youth and the maid, and all their goods.
The young lad was about seventeen years of age, a pretty, well-bred, modest, and sensible youth; greatly dejected with the loss of his mother, and, as it happened had lost his father but a few months before at Barbados. He begged of the surgeon to speak to me, to take him out of the ship; for he said, the cruel fellows had murdered his mother; and indeed so they had, that is to say, passively; for they might have spared a small sustenance to the poor helpless widow, that might have preserved her life, though it had been just to keep her alive. But hunger knows no friend, no relation, no justice, no right; and therefore is remorseless, and capable of no compassion.
The surgeon told him how far we were going, and how it would carry him away from all his friends, and put him perhaps in as bad circumstance, almost, as we found them in; that is to say, starving in the world. He said it mattered not whither he went, if he was but delivered from the terrible crew that he was among: that the captain (by which he meant me, for he could know nothing of my nephew) had saved his life, and he was sure would not hurt him; and as for the maid, he was sure, if she came to herself, she would be very thankful for it, let us carry them whither we would. The surgeon represented the case so affectionately to me, that I yielded, and we took them both on board with all their goods, except eleven hogsheads of sugar, which could not be removed, or come at; and as the youth had a bill of lading for them, I made his commander sign a writing, obliging him to go, as soon as he came to Bristol, to one Mr. Rogers, a merchant there, to whom the youth said he was related, and to deliver a letter which I wrote to him, and all the goods he had belonging to the deceased widow; which I suppose was not done; for I could never learn that the ship came to Bristol; but was, as is most probable, lost at sea, being in so disabled a condition, and so far from any land, that I am of opinion, the first storm she met with afterwards she might founder in the sea; for she was leaky, and had damage in her hold when I met with her.
I was now in the latitude of 19 deg. 32 min. and had hitherto had a tolerable voyage as to weather, though at first the winds had been contrary. I shall trouble nobody with the little incidents of wind, weather, currents, &c. on the rest of our voyage; but, shortening my story for the sake of what is to follow, shall observe, that I came to my old habitation, the island, on the 10th of April, 1695. It was with no small difficulty that I found the place; for as I came to it, and went from it before, on the south and east side of the island, as coming from the Brasils; so now coming in between the main and the island, and having no chart for the coast, nor any land-mark, I did not know it when I saw it, or know whether I saw it or no.
We beat about a great while, and went on shore on several islands in the mouth of the great river Oroonoque, but none for my purpose: only this I learnt by my coasting the shore, that I was under one great mistake before, viz. that the continent which I thought I saw from the island I lived in, was really no continent, but a long island, or rather a ridge of islands reaching from one to the other side of the extended mouth of that great river; and that the savages who came to my island, were not properly those which we call Caribbees, but islanders, and other barbarians of the same kind, who inhabited something nearer to our side than the rest.
In short, I visited several of the islands to no purpose; some I found were inhabited, and some were not. On one of them I found some Spaniards, and thought they had lived there; but speaking with them, found they had a sloop lay in a small creek hard by, and that they came thither to make salt, and catch some pearl-muscles, if they could; but they belonged to the Isle de Trinidad, which lay farther north, in the latitude of 10 and 11degrees.
Thus coasting from one island to another, sometimes with the ship, sometimes with the Frenchman's shallop (which we had found a convenient boat, and therefore kept her with their very good will,) at length I came fair on the south side of my island, and I presently knew the very countenance of the place; so I brought the ship safe to an anchor broadside with the little creek where was my old habitation.
To be continued
