Chapter 40

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How the brigantines lost sight of each other in a storm, and afterwards came together at a kay.

The tempest having passed off from the beach where the brigantines were riding, the people went on shore. With mattocks they dug holes there, into which the water having flowed, they thence filled their pipkins. The next day they left; and sailing two days, they entered a basin, like a cove, which afforded shelter against a high wind that blew from the south. There they tarried, unable to leave, until the fourth day, when the sea subsided and they went out by rowing. They sailed until near evening; the wind then freshened, driving them in such manner upon the land, that they regretted having left the harbor; for no sooner was it nightfall than the storm began to rise on the sea, and with its approach the wind gradually increased. The brigantines separated. The two that were farthest out entered an arm of the sea, a couple of leagues beyond the place where the others found themselves at dark. The five that were astern remained from half a league to a league apart, along an exposed beach, upon which the winds and waves were casting them, without one vessel's knowing the fate of another. The anchors having yielded, the vessels were dragging them: the oars, at each of which seven and eight were pulling seaward, could not hold the vessels; the rest of the men, leaping into the water, with the utmost diligence, after the wave had passed that drove them to the shore, would launch the brigantine; while those on board, before another wave could come, baled out with bowls the water that came in upon them.

While thus engaged, in great fear of being lost, from midnight forward they suffered the intolerable torment of a myriad of mosquitos. The flesh is directly inflamed from their sting, as though it had received venom. Towards morning the wind lulled, and the sea went down; but the insects continued none the less. The sails, which were white, appeared black with them at daylight; while the men could not pull at the oars without assistance to drive away the insects. Fear having passed off with the danger of the storm, the people observing the swollen condition of each other's faces, and the marks of the blows they had given and received to rid them of the mosquitos, they could but laugh. The vessels came together in a creek, where lay the two brigantines that preceded them. Finding a scum the sea casts up, called copee, which is like pitch, and used instead on shipping, where that is not to be had, they payed the bottoms of their vessels with it.

After remaining two days they resumed their voyage; and having run likewise two days, they entered an arm of the sea and landed. Spending there a couple of days, they left; six men on the last day having gone up the bay in a canoe without finding its head. The brigantines went out in a head-wind blowing from the south, which being light, and the people having a strong desire to hasten the voyage, they pulled out by strength of arm to sea with great toil, and making little headway for two days, they entered by an arm of the sea behind an islet which it encircles, where followed such bad weather, that they were not unmindful to give thanks for that good shelter. Fish abounded there. They were taken in nets and with the line. A man having thrown out a cord made fast to his arm, a fish caught at the hook and drew him into the water up to the neck, when, remembering a knife that he had providentially kept, he cut himself loose.

At the close of the fourteenth day of their stay, the Almighty having thought proper to send fair weather, the Christians very devoutly formed a procession for the return of thanks, in which, moving along the beach, they supplicated Him that He would take them to a land in which they might better do Him service.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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