t into
the ocean, but was fain to run south, past the Orkneys, and down through
the Minch, between Cape Wrath and Lewis; how the younger hands were
ready to mutiny, because Amyas, in his stubborn haste, ran past two or
three noble prizes which were all but disabled, among others one of
the great galliasses, and the two great Venetians, La Ratta and La
Belanzara--which were afterwards, with more than thirty other vessels,
wrecked on the west coast of Ireland; how he got fresh water, in spite
of certain "Hebridean Scots" of Skye, who, after reviling him in an
unknown tongue, fought with him awhile, and then embraced him and his
men with howls of affection, and were not much more decently clad, nor
more civilized, than his old friends of California; how he pacified his
men by letting them pick the bones of a great Venetian which was going
on shore upon Islay (by which they got booty enough to repay them for
the whole voyage), and offended them again by refusing to land and
plunder two great Spanish wrecks on the Mull of Cantire (whose crews, by
the by, James tried to smuggle off secretly into Spain in ships of his
own, wishing to play, as usual, both sides of the game at once; but
the Spaniards were stopped at Yarmouth till the council's pleasure was
known--which was, of course, to let the poor wretches go on their way,
and be hanged elsewhere); how they passed a strange island, half black,
half white, which the wild people called Raghary, but Cary christened it
"the drowned magpie;" how the Sta. Catharina was near lost on the Isle
of Man, and then put into Castleton (where the Manx-men slew a whole
boat's-crew with their arrows), and then put out again, when Amyas
fought with her a whole day, and shot away her mainyard; how the
Spaniard blundered down the coast of Wales, not knowing whither he went;
how they were both nearly lost on Holyhead, and again on Bardsey Island;
how they got on a lee shore in Cardigan Bay, before a heavy westerly
gale, and the Sta. Catharina ran aground on Sarn David, one of those
strange subaqueous pebble-dykes which are said to be the remnants of the
lost land of Gwalior, destroyed by the carelessness of Prince Seithenin
the drunkard, at whose name each loyal Welshman spits; how she got off
again at the rising of the tide, and fought with Amyas a fourth time;
how the wind changed, and she got round St. David's Head;--these, and
many more moving incidents of this eventful voyage, I must pass over