1672] of the Rest of the Voyage 105 
mark of a great & approaching tempest; & when they 
see this Fire on the Masts & upper Rigging of a Vessel, 
’tis a sign that the storm is about to cease. 
The storm having overtaken us, it lasted again three 
days & three nights with thunders & lightnings, surpris¬ 
ing in the Winter season in which we were. The lightning 
burnt our sails & our cordage, & the wind having torn our 
fore try-sail, the only one which we were able to carry, we 
were reduc’d to having none. This storm having ceas’d, 
we got out a little of the canvas which remain’d to us, & 
from which we made a new fore-sail, on which all our 
hopes were founded, all our other sails having been carry’d 
away by the winds & lightnings, or render’d unfit for 
service, so much so that without this only sail, we should 
be in great danger of perishing at sea, either by storms or 
hunger, not having anything else wherewith to navigate 
& reach the land. 
We had still more bad weather, until the eighth of 
January, & during this time we doubl’d Cape Finisterre , 
& made good way, the wind, although boisterous, being 
favourable to our course. 
The next day the ninth , being in latitude 45 degrees & 
a half, fair for reaching la Rochelle, we hove-to our Vessel, 
& cast our lead in order to ascertain where we might 
be; we did not find bottom, because our Pilots were 
deceiv’d in their estimate of longitude, & we were more 
than 150 leagues to the west than what they had 
estimated. 
The 10 th & nth , we again sounded without finding 
bottom. 
The 12 th, in the evening we remarked a change in the 
sea, the water being more white than generally, we saw 
sea-weed & a quantity of birds. ’Twas an assurance to us 
that we were not far from land. We sounded & found 
bottom in 80 fathoms : we shorten’d sail until next day at 
