e a great number of children which in the seas beare
out better than men, and no maruell, when that many women also passe very
well. The setting foorth from the port I need not to tell how solemne it is
with trumpets, and shooting of ordinance, you may easily imagine it,
considering that they go in the maner of warre. The tenth of the foresayd
moneth we came to the sight of Porto Santo neere vnto Madera, where an
English shippe set vpon ours (which was then also alone) with a few shots,
which did no harme, but after that our ship had layed out her greatest
ordinance, they straight departed as they came. The English shippe was very
faire and great, which I was sorry to see so ill occupied, for she went
rouing about, so that we saw her againe at the Canarian Iles, vnto the
which we came the thirteenth of the sayd moneth, and good leisure we had to
woonder at the high mountaine of the Iland Tenerif, for we wandred betweene
that and great Canaria foure dayes by reason of contrary windes: and
briefly, such euill weather we had vntill the foureteenth of May, that they
despaired, to compasse the Cape of Good hope that yeere. Neuertheless,
taking our voyage betweene Guinea and the Ilands of Capo Verde, without
seeing of any land at all, we arriued at length vnto the coast of Guinie,
which the Portugals so call, chiefly that part of the burning Zone, which
is from the sixt degree vnto the Equinoctiall, in which parts they suffered
so many inconueniences of heats, and lacke of windes, that they thinke
themselues happy when they haue passed it: for sometimes the ship standeth
there almost by the space of many dayes, sometimes she goeth, but in such
order that it were almost as good to stand still. And the greatest part of
this coast not cleare, but thicke and cloudy, full of thunder and
lightening, and raine so vnholesome, that if the water stand a little
while, all is full of wormes, and falling on the meat which is hanged vp,
it maketh it straight full of wormes. Along all that coast we often times
saw a thing swimming vpon the water like a cocks combe (which they call a
ship of Guinea) but the colour much fairer; which combe standeth vpon a
thing almost like the swimmer of a fish in colour and bignesse, and beareth
vnderneath in the water, strings which saue it from turning ouer. This
thing is so poisonous, that a man cannot touch it without great perill. In
this coast, that is to say, from the sixt degree vnto the Equinoctiall, we