102 THE FIRST CARGO.

emptied, and lowered them down upon my raft. The first of these 1
filled with provisions—namely, bread, rice, three Dutch cheeses, five
pieces of dried goat’s flesh, which we lived much upon, and a little
remainder of European corn which had been laid by for some fowls
which we brought to sea with us; but the fowls were killed.
There had been some barley and wheat together, but to my great
disappointment I found afterwards that the rats had eaten or
spoiled it all. As for liquors, I found several cases of bottles
belonging to our skipper, in which were some cordial waters, and
in all about five or six gallons of rack. These I stowed by them-
selves, there being no need to put them into the chest, and noroom
for them. While I was doing this I found the tide began to flow,
though very calm, and I had the mortification to see my coat, shirt,
and waistcoat, which I had left on shore upon the sand swim away;
as for my breeches, which were only linen and open-kneed, I swam
on board in them and my stockings. However, this put me on
rummaging for clothes, of which I found enough, but took no
more than I wanted for present use, for I had other things which
my eye was more upon—as, first, tools to work with on shore,
and it was after long searching that I found out the carpenter’s
chest, which was indeed a very useful prize to me, and much more
valuable than a ship loading of gold would have been at that time.
T got it down to my raft even whole as it was, without losing time
to look into it, for I knew in general what it contained.

My next care was for some ammunition and arms. There were
two very good fowling-pieces in the great cabin, and two pistols;
these I secured first, with some powder-horns, and a small bag of
shot, and two old rusty swords. I knew there were three barrels
of powder in the ship, but knew not where our gunner had stowed
them; but with much search I found them, two of them dry and
good, the third had taken water. Those two I got to my raft
with the arms; and now I thought myself pretty well freighted,
and began to think how I should get to shore with them, having
neither sail, oar, nor rudder, and the least capful of wind would have
overset all my navigation.

I had three encouragements—first, a smooth calm sea; second,
the tide rising and setting in to the shore; third, what little wind