printed picture that was made of him. But I never knew any paint of such virtue; and as for Jeoly, I I have seen him as much afraid of snakes, scorpions, or centipedes as myself. Having given this account of the ship that left me at Nicobar, and of my Painted Prince whom I brought with me to Bencouli, I shall now proceed with the relation of my voyage thence to England, after I have given this short account of the occasion of it, and the manner of my getting away. To say nothing, therefore, now of that place, and my employ ment there as gunner of the fort, the year 1690 drew towards an end; and not finding the Governor keep to his agreement with me, nor seeing by his carriage towards others any great reason I had to suspect he would, I began to wish myself away again. I saw so much ignorance in him with respect to his charge, being much fitter to be a book-keeper than governor of a fort; and yet so much insolence and cruelty with respect to those under him, and rashness in his management of the Malay neighbourhood, that I soon grew weary of him, not thinking myself very safe, indeed, under a man whose humours were so brutish and barbarous. I had other motives also for my going away. I began to long after my native country, after so tedious a ramble from it; and I proposed no small advantage to myself from my Painted Prince, whom Mr Moody had left entirely to my disposal, only reserving to himself his right to one half share in him. For besides what might be gained by showing him in England, I was in hopes that when I had got some money, I might there obtain what I had in vain sought for in the Indies -a ship from the merchants, wherewith to carry him back to Meangis, and reinstate him there in his own country, and by his favour and negotiation to establish a traffic for the spice and other products of those islands. Upon these projects, I went to the Governor and Council, and desired that I might have my discharge to go for England with the next ship that came. The Council thought it reasonable, and they consented to it; he also gave me his word that I should go. Upon the 2d of January 1691, there came to an anchor in Bencouli Road the Defence, Captain Heath commander, bound for England, in the service of the Company. They had been at Indrapore, where Mr Moody then was; and he had made over his share in Prince Jeoly to Mr Goddard, chief mate of the ship. Upon his coming on shore, he showed me Mr Moody's writings, and looked upon Jeoly, who had been sick for three months; in all which time I tended him as carefully as if he had been my brother. I agreed matters with Mr Goddard, and sent Jeoly on board, intending to follow him as I could, and desiring Mr Goddard's assistance to fetch me off and conceal me aboard the ship if there should be occasion; which he promised to do, and the captain promised to entertain me. For it proved, as I had foreseen, that upon Captain Heath's arrival, the Governor repented him of his promise, and would not suffer me to depart. I importuned him all I could, but in vain; so did Captain Heath also, but to no purpose. short, after several essays, I shipped away at midnight (understanding the ship was to sail the next morning, and that they had taken leave of the fort); and, creeping through one of the portholes of the fort, I got to the shore, where the ship's boat waited for me, and carried me on board. I brought with me my journal, and most of my written papers; but some papers and books of value I left in haste and all my furniture, being glad I was myself at liberty, and had hopes of seeing England again. CHAPTER XIX. In BEING thus got on board the Defence, I was concealed there till a boat which came from the fort laden with pepper 1691.] was gone off again. And then we set sail for the Cape of Good Hope, January 25th, 1691, and made the best of our way, as wind and weather would permit, expecting there to meet three English ships more, bound home from the Indies: for the war with the French having been proclaimed at Fort St George a little before Captain Heath came from thence, he was willing to have company home if he could. 305 A SEA FIGHT BEFORE FORT ST GEORGE. A little before this war was pro- With this they thought to have burnt the Dutch Commodore, and might probably enough have done it as she lay at anchor, if they had had the courage to come boldly on; but they fired their ship at a distance, and the Dutch sent and towed her away, where she spent herself without any execution. Had the French menof-war also come boldly up and grappled with their enemies, they might have done something considerable; for the fort could not have played on them without damaging our ships as well as theirs. But instead of this, the French dropped anchor out of reach of the shot of the fort, and there lay exchanging shot with their enemies' ships, with so little advantage to themselves, that after about four hours' fighting they cut their cables and went away in haste and disorder, with all their sails loose, even their topgallant sails, which is not usual but when ships are just next to running away. Captain Heath, notwithstanding his ship was so heavy and encumbered, behaved himself very bravely in the fight; and upon the going off of the French, went on board the Dutch Commodore, and told him that if he would pursue them he would stand out with them to sea, though he had But the very little water aboard. Dutch commander excused himself, saying he had orders to defend himself from the French, but none to chase thein, or go out of his way to seek them. And this was the exploit which the French have thought fit to brag of. I hear that the Dutch have U taken from them since their fort of Pondicherry. But to proceed with our voyage. We had not been at sea long before our men began to droop in a sort of a distemper that stole insensibly on them, and proved fatal to above thirty, who died before we arrived at the Cape. We had sometimes two and once three men thrown overboard in a morning. This distemper might probably arise from the badness of the water which we took in at Bencouli, for I did observe while I was there that the river water, wherewith our ships were watered, was very unwholesome, it being mixed with the water of many small creeks that proceeded from low land, and whose streams were always very black, they being nourished by the water that drained out of the low swampy unwholesome ground. I have observed, not only there but in other hot countries also, both in the East and West Indies, that the land-floods which pour into the channels of the rivers about the season of the rains are very unwholesome. This happens chiefly, as I take it, where the water drains through thick woods and savannahs of long grass and swampy grounds, with which some hot countries abound; and I believe it receives a strong tincture from the roots of several kind of trees, herbs, &c.; and especially where there is any stagnancy of the water, it soon corrupts; and possibly the serpents and other poisonous vermin and insects may not a little contribute to its bad qualities; at such times it will look very deep coloured, yellow, red, or black, &c. The season of the rains was over, and the landfloods were abating upon the taking up this water in the River of Bencouli; but would the seamen have given themselves the trouble, they might have filled their vessels with excellent good water at a spring on the back side of the fort, not above 200 or 300 paces from the landing-place, and with which the fort is served. Beside the badness of our water, it was stowed among the pepper in the hold, which made it very hot. Every morn ing when we came to take our allowance, it was so hot that a man could hardly suffer his hands in it, or hold a bottleful of it in his hand. I never anywhere felt the like, nor could I have thought it possible that water should heat to that degree in a ship's hold. It was exceeding black, too, and looked more like ink than water. Whether it grew so black with standing, or was tinged with the pepper, I know not; for this water was not so black when it was first taken up. Our food also was very bad, for the ship had been out of England upon this voyage above three years; and the salt provision brought from thence, which we fed on, having been so long in salt, was but ordinary food for sickly men to feed on. Captain Heath, when he saw the misery of his company, ordered his own tamarinds of which he had some jars aboardto be given some to each mess to eat with their rice. This was a great refreshment to the men, and I do believe it contributed much to keep us on our legs. This distemper was so universal that I do believe there was scarce a man in the ship but languished under it; yet it stole so insensibly on us, that we could not say we were sick, feeling little or no pain, only a weakness, and but little stomach. Nay, most of those that died in this voyage would hardly be persuaded to keep their cabins or hammocks till they could not stir about; and when they were forced to lie down, they made their wills, and piked off in two or three days. The loss of these men, and the weak languishing condition that the rest of us were in, rendered us incapable to govern our ship when the wind blew more than ordinary. This often happened when we drew near the Cape, and as oft put us to our trumps to 1 "Peaked off;" gradually dwindled and died. The word is used in the witches' curse in Macbeth, Act 1, s. 3: "Weary seven nights, nine times nine, Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine." Forced us to our utmost efforts; drove us to our wits' end. 1691.] THE VOYAGE TO THE CAPE. manage the ship. Captain Heath, 1 Which received the name of St 307 thus far sounded the inclination of his This offer was first embraced The next The night before we entered the harbour, which was about the beginning of April, being near the land, we fired a gun every hour to give notice that we were in distress. day, a Dutch captain came aboard in his boat; who, seeing us so weak as not to be able to trim our sails to turn into the harbour, though we did tolerably well at sea before the wind, and being requested by our captain to assist him, sent ashore for a hundred lusty men, who immediately came aboard, and brought our ship in to an anchor. They also unbent our sails, and did everything for us that they were required to do, for which Captain Heath gratified them to the full. These men had better | the East Indies, when after coasting stomachs than we, and ate freely of along the vast continent of Africa, such food as the ship afforded; and towards the South Pole, they had they having the freedom of our ship, the comfort of seeing the land and to go to and fro between decks, made their course end in this promontory, prize of what they could lay their which therefore they called the Cape hands on, especially salt beef, which de Bon Esperance, or of Good Hope, our men, for want of stomachs in the finding that they might now proceed voyage, had hung up, six, eight, or eastward. The most remarkable ten pieces in a place. This was con- land at sea is a high mountain, steep veyed away before we knew it or to the sea, with a flat even top, which thought of it; besides, in the night, is called the Table Land. On the there was a bale of muslins broken west side of the Cape, a little to the open, and a great deal conveyed northward of it, there is a spacious away; but whether the muslins were harbour, with a low flat island lying stolen by our own men or the Dutch off it, which you may leave on either I cannot say, for we had some very hand, and pass in or out securely at dexterous thieves in our ship. Being either end. Ships that anchor here thus got safe to an anchor, the sick ride near the mainland, leaving the were presently sent ashore, to quar- island at a farther distance without ters provided for them, and those them. The land by the sea against that were able remained aboard and the harbour is low, but backed with had good fat mutton or fresh beef sent high mountains a little way in, to aboard every day. I went ashore, the southward of it. also, with my Painted Prince, where I remained with him till the time of sailing again, which was about six weeks, in which time I took the opportunity to inform myself of what I could concerning this country, which I shall in this next place give a brief account of, and so make what haste I can home. The soil of this country is of a brown colour; not deep, yet indifferently productive of grass, herbs, and trees. The grass is short, like that which grows on our Wiltshire or Dorsetshire Downs. The trees hereabouts are but small and few; the country also farther from the sea does not much abound in trees, as I have been informed. The mould or soil also is much like this near the harbour, which though it cannot be said to be very fat or rich land, yet it is very fit for cultivation, and yields good crops to the industrious husbandman; and the country is pretty well settled with farms, Dutch families and French refugees, for twenty or thirty leagues up in the country; but there are but few farms near the harbour. Here grows plenty of wheat, barley, pease, &c. Here are also fruits of many kinds, as apples, pears, quinces, and the largest pomegranates that I did ever see. The chief fruits are grapes. These thrive very well, and the A passage relating to soundings and signs of nearing the Cape is omitted. 3 Table Bay. |
