PERILS OF THE DEEP. 91

to act the rebel to their authority and the fool to my own
interest.

Our ship was about 120 tons burden ; carried six guns and
fourteen men, besides the master, his boy, and myself. We had
on board no large cargo of goods, except of such toys as were fit
for our trade with the negroes—such as beads, bits of glass, shells
and odd trifles, especially little looking-glasses, knives, scissors,
hatchets, and the like.

The same day I went on board we set sail, standing away to
the northward upon our own coast, with design to stretch over for
the African coast when they came about 10 or 12 degrees of
northern latitude; which, it seems, was the manner of their course
in those days. We had very good weather, only excessively hot,
all the way upon our own coast, till we came the height of Cape
St. Augustino; from whence, keeping further off at sea, we lost
sight of land, and steered as if we were bound for the isle Fernand
de Noronha, holding our course north-east by north, and leaving
those isles on the east. In this course we passed the line in about
twelve days’ time; and were by our last observation in 7 degrees
22, minutes northern latitude, when a violent tornado or hurricane
took us quite out of our knowledge. It began from the south-
east, came about to the north-west, and then settled into the
north-east ; from whence it blew in such a terrible manner that
for twelve days together we could do nothing but drive, and ecud-
ding away before it, let it carry us whither ever fate and the fury
of the winds directed. And during these twelve days I need not
say that I expected every day to be swallowed up; nor, indeed,
did any in the ship expect to save their lives.

In this distress, we had, besides the terror of the storm, one of
our men died of the calenture, and one man and the boy washed
overboard. About the twelfth day, the weather abating a little,
the master made an observation as well as he could, and found
that he was in about 11 degrees north latitude, but that he
was 22 degrees of longitude difference west from Cape St.
Augustino; so that he found he was gotten upon the coast of
Guiana, or the north part of Brazil, beyond the River Amazon,
toward that of the River Orinoco, commonly called the Great