470 
ADAMS'S NARRATIVE. 
vert all our preconceived ideas on the subject, than 
to substitute any others of a satisfactory nature In 
their place. These facts, however, must still 
deserve notice in the absence of better informa- 
tion. 
On the 17th October 1810, the American ship 
Charles, John Horton master, set sail from 'New- 
York, and having touched at Gibraltar, proceeded 
on a trading voyage along the African coast. On 
the 11th of October, when they were a little to 
the south of Cape Blanco, the noise - of breakers 
was heard, and about an hour after, the ship struck. 
The fog was so thick that the land could not be 
discerned ; yet all the sailors reached it by swim- 
ming. Unfortunately, at the first alarm, they had 
thrown overboard not only their wine and provi- 
sions, but their muskets, powder and ball ; so that, 
whatever enemy might appear, they were totally 
unprovided with any means of defence. They 
were soon surrounded and made prisoners by thirty 
or forty Moors, who belonged to a small douar, 
or fishing encampment in the neighbourhood. These 
Moors appeared miserably poor, having no clothes, 
except a rug or skin round the waist, and a rag, 
by way of turban, binding the heads of the females. 
Their tents were composed of stuff' resembling a 
coarse blanket, formed of goats' hair and sheep's 
wool interwoven*; and; some had no terits at all. 
Their food consisted entirely of fish, which often 
