or that voyage. And then
wee departed from Pegu to Chatigan a great harbour or port, from whence
there goe smal ships to Cochin, before the fleete depart for Portugall, in
which ships I was fully determined to goe to Lisbon, and so to Venice.
[Sidenote: This Touffon is an extraordinary storme at Sea.] When I had thus
resolued my selfe, I went a boord of the shippe of Bengala, at which time
it was the yeere of Touffon: concerning which Touffon ye are to vnderstand,
that in the East Indies often times, there are not stormes as in other
countreys; but euery 10. or 12. yeeres there are such tempests and stormes,
that it is a thing incredible, but to those that haue seene it, neither do
they know certainly what yeere they wil come.

[Sidenote: The Touffon commeth but euery 10. or 12. yeeres.] Vnfortunate
are they that are at sea in that yere and time of the Touffon, because few
there are that escape that danger. In this yere it was our chance to be at
sea with the like storme, but it happened well vnto vs, for that our ship
was newly ouer-plancked, and had not any thing in her saue victuall and
balasts, Siluer and golde, which from Pegu they cary to Bengala, and no
other kinde of Marchandise. This Touffon or cruel storme endured three
dayes and three nights: in which time it caried away our sailes, yards, and
rudder; and because the shippe laboured in the Sea, wee cut our mast ouer
boord: which when we had done she laboured a great deale more then before,
in such wise, that she was almost full with water that came ouer the
highest part of her and so went downe: and for the space of three dayes and
three nights sixtie men did nothing but hale water out of her in this wise,
twentie men in one place, and twentie men in another place, and twentie in
a thirde place: and for all this storme, the shippe was so good, that shee
tooke not one iot of water below through her sides, but all ran downe
through the hatches, so that those sixtie men did nothing but cast the Sea
into the Sea. And thus driuing too and fro as the winde and Sea would, we
were in a darke night about foure of the clocke cast on a sholde: yet when
it was day, we could neither see land on one side nor other, and knew not
where we were: And as it pleased the diuine power, there came a great waue
of the Sea, which draue vs beyonde the should. [Sidenote: A manifest token
of the ebbing and flowing in those Countries.] And when wee felt the shippe
aflote, we rose vp as men