276 GREEXLAXD. 



the unsavory and mouldie Frittars, and the other three, we 

 feasted it with Beare and Venison. But, as if it were not 

 enough for us to want meate, we now began to want light 

 also : all our meales proved suppers now, for little light 

 could we see ; even the glorious Sunne (as if unwilling to 

 behold our miseries) masking his lovely face from us, under 

 the sable vaile of cole-blacke night. Thus, from the four- 

 teenth of October till the third of February, we never saAV 

 the Sunne ; nor did hee, all that time, ever so much as 

 peepe above the Horizon. But the Moone we saw at all 

 times, day and night (when the cloudes obscured her not) 

 shining as bright as shee doth in England. The skie, 'tis 

 true, is very much troubled with thicke and blacke weather 

 all the Winter time, so that then we could not see the Moone, 

 nor could discerne what point of the Compasse shee bore 

 upon us. A kinde of daylight wee had indeed, which glim- 

 mer'd some eight houres a day unto us, in October time I 

 meane ; for from thence, unto the first of December, even 

 that light was shortened tenne or twelve minuts a day con- 

 stantly, so that, from the first of December till the twentieth, 

 there appeared no light at all, but all was one continued 

 night. All that wee could perceive was, that in a cleare 

 season now and then, there appeared a little glare of white, 

 like some show of day towards the South, but no light at 

 all. And this continued till the first of January, by which 

 time wee might perceive the day a little to increase. All 

 this darksome time, no certainety could wee have when it 

 should be day or when night : onely my selfe out of mine 

 owne little judgement, kept the observation of it thus. First, 

 bearing in minde the number of the Epact, I made my 

 addition by a day supposed (though not absolutely to be 

 known, by reason of the darknesse) by which I judged of 

 the age of the Moone ; and this gave me my rule of the 

 passing of the time ; so that, at the comming of the Ships 

 into the Port, I told them the very day of the moncth, as 

 directly as they themselves could tell nice. 



