428 BATAVIA TO CAPE OF GOOD HOPE CH. xviii 
12th. 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. 
7th. For these some days past the seamen have found 
the ship to be driven hither and thither by currents! in a 
manner totally unaccountable to them. 
The surface of the water was pretty thickly strewed with 
1 The Agulhas currents. 
