" 262 ROBINSON CRUSOB.

Contrary winds first put us to the northward, and we were
obliged to put in at Galway, in Ireland, where we lay wind-
bound two-and-twenty days ; but we had this satisfaction with
the disaster, that provisions were here exceeding cheap, and
in the utmost plenty; so that while we lay here, we never
touched the ship’s stores, but rather added to them. Here,
also, I took in several live hogs, and two cows with their calves,
which I resolved, if I had a good passage, to put on shore in my
Island: but we found occasion to dispose otherwise of them.

We set out: the sth of February from Ireland, and had a
very fair gale of wind for some days. As I remember, it might
be about the 2oth of February, in the evening late, when the
mate, having the watch, came into the round-house and told us he
saw a flash of fire, and heard a gun fired 3 and while he was
telling us of it, a boy came in, and told us the boatswain heard
another. This made usall run out upon the quarter-deck, where,
for awhile, we heard nothing ; but in a few minutes we saw a
very great light, and found that there was some very terrible fire
at a distance ; immediately we had recourse to our reckonings, in
which we all agreed that there could be no land that way in which
the fire showed itself, no, not for five hundred leagues, for it ap-
peared at W. N. W. Upon this, we concluded it must be some
ship on fire at sea ; and as, by our hearing the noise of guns
just before, we concluded that it could not be far off, we stood
directly towards it, and were presently satisfied we should dis-
cover it, because the farther we sailed, the greater the light ap-
peared ; though, the weather being hazy, we could not per-
ceive anything but the light for a whilé, In about half an
hour’s sailing, the wind being fair for us, though not much of
it, and the weather clearing up‘a little, we could plainly dis-
cern that it was a great ship on fire, in the middle of the sea.

I was most sensibly touched with the disaster, though
not at all acquainted with the persons engaged in it: I pres-
ently recollected my former circumstances, and what condition
I was in when taken up by the Portuguese captain, and how
much more deplorable the circumstances of the poor creatures
belonging to that ship must be, if they had no other ship in
company with them. Upon this, I immediately ordered that
five guns should be fired, one soon after another, that, if
possible, we might give notice to them that there was help
for them at hand, and that they might endeavor to save them-
selves in their boat ; for though we could see the flames of
the ship, yet they, it being night, could see nothing of us.

We lay by some time upen this, only driving as the burning