A
DESCRIPTION OF THE INHABITANTS.
Having been condemned by nature and fortune to an active and restless
life, in two months after my return I again left my native country, and
took shipping in the Downs on the twentieth day of June, 1702, in the
"Adventure," Captain John Nicholas, a Cornish man, commander, bound for
Surat. We had a very prosperous gale till we arrived at the Cape of Good
Hope, where we landed for fresh water; but, discovering a leak, we
unshipped our goods and wintered there: for, the captain falling sick of
an ague, we could not leave the Cape till the end of March. We then set
sail, and had a good voyage till we passed the Straits of
Madagascar;[41] but having got northward of that island, and to about
five degrees south latitude, the winds, which in those seas are observed
to blow a constant equal gale, between the north and west, from the
beginning of December to the beginning of May, on the nineteenth of
April began to blow with much greater violence and more westerly than
usual, continuing so for twenty days together, during which time we were
driven a little to the east of the Molucca Islands, and about three
degrees northward of the line,[42] as our captain found by an
observation he took the second of May, at which time the wind ceased and
it was a perfect calm; whereat I was not a little rejoiced.
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