I perceived the creature (whatever it was) within two oars length, which something surprised me; however, I immediately stept to the cabin door, and taking up my gun, fired at him; upon which, he immediately turned about, and swam to the shore again.

But it is impossible to describe the horrible noises, and hideous cries and howlings that were raised, as well upon the edge of the shore as higher within the country, upon the noise or report of the gun; a thing, I believe, those creatures had never heard before. This convinced me there was no going on shore for us in the night upon that coast: and how to venture on shore in the day, was another question too; for to have fallen into the hands of any of the savages, had been as bad as to have fallen into the paws of lions and tigers; at least, we were equally apprehensive of the danger of it.

Be that as it would, we were obliged to go on shore somewhere or other for water, for we had not a pint left in the boat: when and where to get it was the point. Xury said, if I would let him go on shore with one of the jars, he would find if there was any water, and bring some to me. I asked him why he would go; why I should not go, and he stay in the boat. The boy answered with so much affection, that he made me love him ever after. Says he, If wild mans come, they eat me, you go way-Well, Xury, said I, we will both go; and if the wild mans come, we will kill them; they shall eat neither of us. So I gave Xury a piece of rusk bread to eat, and a dram out of our patron's case of bottles, which I mentioned before; and we hauled in the boat as near the shore as we thought was proper, and so waded to shore, carrying nothing but our arms, and two jars for water.

I did not care to go out of sight of the boat, fear

ing the coming of canoes with savages down the river; but the boy, seeing a low place about a mile up the country, rambled to it; and, by and by, I saw him come running toward me. I thought he was pursued by some savage, or frightened by some wild beast, and I therefore ran forwards to help him; but when I came nearer to him, I saw something hanging over his shoulders, which was a creature that he had shot, like a hare, but different in colour, and longer legs: however, we were very glad of it and it was very good meat: but the great joy that poor Xury came with, was to tell me he had found good water, and seen no wild mans.

But we found afterwards, that we need not take such pains for water; for a little higher up the creek where we were, we found the water fresh when the tide was out, which flowed but a little way up; so we filled our jars, and, having a fire, feasted on the hare we had killed; and prepared to go on our way, having seen no footsteps of any human creature in that part of the country.

As I had been one voyage to this coast before, I knew very well that the islands of the Canaries, and the Cape de Verd islands also, lay not far from the coast. But as I had no instruments to take an observation, to find what latitude we were in; and did not exactly know, or at least remember, what latitude they were in, I knew not where to look for them, or when to stand off to sea towards them, otherwise I might now have easily found some of these islands. But my hope was, that if I stood along this coast till I came to the part where the English traded, I should find some of their vessels upon their usual design of trade, that would relieve and take us in.

By the best of my calculation, the place where I now was, must be that country which, lying between

the emperor of Morocco's dominions and the Negroes, lies waste, and uninhabited, except by wild beasts; the Negroes having abandoned it, and gone farther south, for fear of the Moors, and the Moors not thinking it worth inhabiting, by reason of its barrenness: and, indeed, both forsaking it because of the prodigious numbers of tigers, lions, leopards, and other furious creatures which harbour there: so that the Moors use it for their hunting only, where they go like an army, two or three thousand men at a time; and, indeed, for near a hundred miles together upon this coast, we saw nothing but a waste, uninhabited country by day, and heard nothing but howlings and roaring of wild beasts by night.

Once or twice, in the day time, I thought I saw the Pico of Teneriffe, being the top of the mountain Teneriffe in the Canaries, and had a great mind to venture out, in hopes of reaching thither; but having tried twice, I was forced in again by contrary winds; the sea also going too high for my little vessel; so I resolved to pursue my first design, and keep along the shore.

Several times I was obliged to land for fresh water, after we had left this place; and once, in particular, being early in the morning, we came to an anchor under a little point of land which was pretty high; and the tide beginning to flow, we lay still, to go farther in. Xury, whose eyes were more about him than, it seems, mine were, calls softly to me, and tells me, that we had best go farther off the shore; for, says he, Look, yonder lies a dreadful monster on the side of that hillock, fast asleep. I looked where he pointed, and saw a dreadful monster indeed, for it was a terrible great lion, that lay on the side of the shore, under the shade of a piece of the hill, that hung, as it were, over him. Xury,

says I, you shall go on shore and kill him. Xury looked frightened, and said, Me kill! he eat me at one mouth one mouthful he meant. However, I said no more to the boy, but bade him be still; and I took our biggest gun, which was almost musquet bore, and loaded it with a good charge of powder, and with two slugs, and laid it down; then I loaded another gun with two bullets; and a third, for we had three pieces, I loaded with five smaller bullets. I took the best aim I could with the first piece, to have shot him in the head; but he lay so, with his leg raised a little above his nose, that the slugs hit his leg about the knee, and broke the bone : he started up, growling at first, but finding his leg broke, fell down again, and then got up upon three legs, and gave the most hideous roar that ever I heard. I was a little surprised that I had not hit him on the head; however, I took up the second piece immediately, and though he began to move off, fired again, and shot him in the head, and had the pleasure to see him drop, and make but little noise, but lie struggling for life. Then Xury took heart, and would have me let him go on shore. Well, go, said I: so the boy jumped into the water, and taking a little gun in one hand, swam to shore with the other hand, and coming close to the creature, put the muzzle of the piece to his ear, and shot him in the head again, which dispatched him quite.

This was game, indeed, to us, but it was no food; and I was very sorry to lose three charges of powder and shot upon a creature that was good for nothing to us. However, Xury said he would have some of him; so he comes on board, and asked me to give him the hatchet : For what, Xury? said I. Me cut off his head, said he. However, Xury could not cut off his head; but he cut off a foot, and

brought it with him, and it was a monstrous great one. I bethought myself, however, that perhaps the skin of him might, one way or other, be of some value to us; and I resolved to take off his skin, if I could. So Xury and I went to work with him: but Xury was much the better workman at it, for I knew very ill how to do it. Indeed, it took us both up the whole day; but at last we got off the hide of him, and spreading it on the top of our cabin, the sun effectually dried it in two days' time, and it afterwards served me to lie upon.

After this stop, we made on to the southward continually, for ten or twelve days, living very sparingly on our provisions, which began to abate very much, and going no oftener into the shore than we were obliged to for fresh water. My design in this, was to make the river Gambia, or Senegal; that is to say, any where about the Cape de Verd, where I was in hopes to meet with some European ship; and if I did not, I knew not what course I had to take, but to seek for the islands, or perish among the Negroes. I knew that all the ships from Europe, which sailed either to the coast of Guinea, or to Brazil, or to the East Indies, made this cape, or those islands: and, in a word, I put the whole of my fortune upon this single point, either that I must meet with some ship, or must perish.

When I had pursued this resolution about ten days longer, as I have said, I began to see that the land was inhabited; and in two or three places, as we sailed by, we saw people stand upon the shore to look at us: we could also perceive they were quite black, and stark naked. I was once inclined to have gone on shore to them; but Xury was my better counsellor, and said to me, No go, no go. However, I hauled in nearer the shore, that I might talk to them; and I found they ran along the shore by