454 THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES

 

and to wash and clean her bottom, and if possible to find out where
the leaks were.

Accordingly, having lightened the ship, and brought all our guns,
and other movable things, to one side, we tried to bring her down, that
we might come at her bottom; for, on second thoughts, we did not care
to lay her dry aground, neither could we find out a proper place for it.

The inhabitants, who had never been acquainted with such a sight,
came wondering down to the shore to look at us; and seeing the ship
lie down on one side in such a manner, and heeling towards the shore,
and not seeing our men, who were at work on her bottom with stages,
and with their boats on the off side, they presently concluded that the
ship was cast away, and lay so very fast on the ground.

On this supposition, they came all about us in two or three hours’
time, with ten or twelve large boats, having some of them eight, some
ten men in a boat, intending, no doubt, to have come on board and
plunder the ship; and if they had found us there, to have carried us
away for slaves to their king, or whatever they call him, for we knew
not who was their governor.

When they came up to the ship, and began to row round her, they
discovered us all hard at work, on the outside of the ship’s bottom
and side, washing, and graving, and stopping, as every seafaring man
knows how.

They stood for a while gazing at us, and we, who were a little sur-
prised, could not imagine what their design was; but being willing to
be sure, we took this opportunity to get some of us into the ship, and
others to hand down arms and ammunition to those that were at work,
to defend themselves with, if there should be occasion; and it was no
more than need, for in less than a quarter of an hour’s consultation,
they agreed, it seems, that the ship was really a wreck; that we were
all at work endeavouring to save her, or to save our lives by the help
of our boats; and when we handed our arms into the boats, they con-
cluded by that motion that we were endeavouring to save some of our
goods. Upon this, they took it for granted they all belonged to them,
and away they came directly upon our men, as if it had been in a line
of battle.

Our men seeing so many of them, began to be frighted, for we lay
but in an ill posture to fight, and cried out to us to know what they
should do? J immediately called to the men whe worked upon the
stages, to slip them down, and get up the side into the ship, and bade
those in the boat to row round and come on board; and those few of
us who were on board, worked with all the strength and hands we had
to brin~ the ship to rights; but, however, neither the men upon the .