70 FISHING EXCURSIONS.

oftener, if the weather was fair, to take the ship’s pinnace, and go
out into the road a-fishing; and as he always took me and a young
Maresco with him to row the boat, we made him very merry, and

I proved very dexterous in catching fish, insomuch that some-

 

“WE ALWAYS TOOK ME AND A YOUNG MARESCO TO ROW THE LOA.”

times he would send me with a Moor, one of his kinsmen, and the
youth—the Maresco, as they called him—to catch a dish of fish for
him.

It happened one time, that going a-fishing in a stark calm
morning, a fog rose so thick, that though we were not half a
league from the shore we lost sight of it; and rowing we knew
not whither or which way, we laboured all day and all the next
night, and when the morning came we found we had pulled off
to sea instead of pulling in for the shore; and that we were at
least two leagues from the shore. However, we got well in
again, though with a great deal of labour and some danger; for
the wind began to blow pretty fresh in the morning: but particu-
larly we were all very hungry.

But our patron, warned by this disaster, resolved to take more
care of himself for the future; and having lying by him the long-
boat of our English ship which he had taken, he resolved he would
not go a-fishing any more without a compass and some provision.
So he ordered the carpenter of his ship, who also was an English
slave, to build a little state-room or cabin in the middle of the