842 A LAND EXPEDITION.

either of those vessels I had been made miserable; and in which
most it was hard to say.

Having been thus harassed in my fhcaeite my old pilot, to
whom I communicated everything, pressed me earnestly not to go
by sea, but either to go by land to the Groyne, and cross over the
Bay of Biscay to Rochelle, from whence it was but an easy and
safe journey by land to Paris, and so to Calais and Dover; or to
go up to Madrid, and so all the way by land through France. In
a word, I was so prepossessed against my going by sea at. all,
except from Calais to Dover, that I resolved to travel all the way
by land; which, as I was not in haste and did not value the charge,
was by much the pleasanter way. And to make it more so, my
old captain brought an English gentleman, the son of a merchant
in Lisbon, who was willing to travel with me; after which we
picked up two more English merchants also, and two young Portu-
guese gentlemen, the last going to Paris only; so that we were in
all six of us, and five servants: the two merchants and the two
Portuguese contenting themselves with one servant between two
to save the charge; and as for me, I got an English sailor to
travel with me as a servant, besides my man Friday, who was too
much a stranger to be capable of supplying the place of a servant
on the road.

In this manner I set out from Lisbon; and our company being
all very well mounted and armed, we made a little troop whereof

 

“WE MADE A LITTLE TROOP, WHEREOF THEY DID ME THE HONOUR
TO CALL ME CAPTAIN.”

they did me the honour to call me captain, as well because I was —
the oldest man as because I had two servants, and indeed was the
original of the whole journey.

As T have troubled you with none of my sea journals, so I shall