EXPERIENTIA DOCET. 205

monstrous enough, and such as in England would have passed: for
frightful.

But all this is by-the-by. For as to my figure, I had so few to
observe me, that it was of no manner of consequence; so I shall
say no more to that part. In this kind of figure I went my new
journey, and was out five or six days. I travelled first along the
sea-shore, directly to the place where I first brought my boat to an
anchor to get up upon the rocks; and having no boat now to take
care of, I went over the land a nearer way to the same height that
I was on before; when looking forward to the point of the rocks
which lay out, and which I was obliged to double with my boat, as is
said above, I was surprised to see the sea all smooth and quiet—no
rippling, no motion, no current any more there than in other places.

I was at a strange loss to understand this, and resolved to spend
some time in the observing of it, to see if nothing from the sets of
the tide had occasioned it; but I was presently convinced how it
was—namely, that the tide of ebb setting from the west, and
joining with this current of waters from some great river on the
shore, must be the occasion of the current; and that according as
the wind blew more forcibly from the west, or from the north,
this current came near, or went further from the shore. For
waiting thereabouts till evening, I went up to the rock again; and
then the tide of ebb being made, I plainly saw the current again as
before, only that it ran further off, being half a league from the
shore; whereas in my case it set close upon the shore, and
hurried me and my canoe along with it, which at another time it
would not have done.

This observation convinced me that I had nothing to do but to
observe the ebbing and the flowing of the tide, and I might very
easily bring my boat about the island again. But when I began
to think of putting it in practice, I had such a terror upon my
spirits at the remembrance of the danger I had been in, that I
could not think of it again with any patience. But, on the con-
trary, I took up another resolution, which was more safe, though
more laborious; and this was, that I would build, or rather make
me another periagua or canoe, and so have one for one side of the
island, and one for the other.