428 BATAVIA TO CAPE OF GOOD HOPE CH. xvm 



Another died. 



14th. A third died to-day : neither of these people had 

 grown either better or worse for many days. 



20th. Lost another man. 



26th. Lost three more people to-day. 



3rd March. In the evening some of the people thought 

 they saw land, but that opinion was rejected almost without 

 examination, as by the journals which had been kept by the 

 log, we were still above a hundred leagues from land, and by 

 observations of sun and moon, full 40. The night was chiefly 

 calms and light breezes, with fog and mist. 



4th. Day broke and showed us at its earliest dawn how 

 fortunate we had been in the calms of last night. What 

 was then supposed to be land proved really so, and not 

 more than five miles from us, so that another hour would 

 have infallibly have carried us upon it. But fortunate 

 as we might think ourselves to be yet unshipwrecked, 

 we were still in extreme danger. The wind blew right 

 upon the shore and with it ran a heavy sea, breaking 

 mountains high upon the rocks, with which it was every- 

 where lined, so that, though some in the ship thought 

 it possible, the major part did not hope to be able to get off. 

 Our anchors and cables were accordingly prepared, but the 

 sea ran too high to allow us a hope of the cables holding 

 should we be driven to the necessity of using them, and 

 should we be driven ashore the breakers gave us little hope 

 of saving even our lives. At last, however, after four hours 

 spent in the vicissitudes of hope and fear, we found that we 

 got gradually off, and before night we were out of danger. 

 The land from whence we so narrowly escaped is part of 

 Terra de Natal, lying between the rivers Sangue and 

 Fourmis, about twenty leagues to the southward of the Bay 

 of Natal. 



*lth. For these some days past the seamen have found 

 the ship to be driven hither and thither by currents 1 in a 

 manner totally unaccountable to them. 



The surface of the water was pretty thickly strewed with 



1 The Agulhas currents. 



