HIS SHIPWRECK. 
489 
thus gleaned should rather tend to subvert all our 
preconceived ideas on the subject, than to substi- 
tute any others of a satisfactory nature in their 
place. These facts, however, must still deserve 
notice in the absence of better information. 
On the 17th October 1810, the American ship 
Charles, John Horton master, set sail from New 
York, and having touched at Gibraltar, proceed- 
ed 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 break- 
ers 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 swimming. Unfortunately, at the first alarm, 
they had thrown overboard not only their wine 
and provisions, 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 misera- 
bly 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 blan- 
ket, formed of goats' hair and sheep's wool in- 
terwoven 5 and some had no tents at all. Their 
