VOYAGE TO THE CAPE. 
[1812. 
US with much civility. He shewed us his library, which 
he kept in a chest, but in which the volume of in- 
spiration was not to be found : on perceiving this, 
Mr. Thorn promised him a New Testament in the 
Portuguese language when we came next on shore, 
which he expressed a willingness to receive. 
We left Port Praya on the 10th of August and 
crossed the Line on the 21st, when the usual formalities 
were minutely attended to by the seamen. On the 
11th of October, when in the full expectation of 
reaching Cape town on the succeeding day, the wind 
changed to the S. E. and blew directly against us with 
so much violence as to raise the sea mountain-high. 
The day following it blew with redoubled fury, which 
obliged us to lay to under a reefed topsail and gib, 
driving away from our port. On the 14th the sea 
continued tremendously awful; about three o'clock in 
the morning we were almost upset by a dreadful sea 
breaking over us : the tumbling of chairs, and the 
rattling of plates and glasses, prevented all sleep. 
When preparing for breakfast, a sea, with a sound 
like thunder, broke upon the vessel, and strewed the 
floor with our shattered tea things. Perhaps of all 
scenes which the human eye has an opportunity of 
beholding, such a storm, in such a latitude, is the 
most grand, majestic, and awful. In the evening the 
storm began to abate. On the following day, at noon, 
we found the storm had driven us more than a hundred 
miles beyond the latitude of the Cape, and two hun- 
dred miles further to the westward in longitude. At 
DSI 
