to go and
come, I sent my boats to the westward, in hopes of finding a nearer and
easier way to bring down hogs and goats. In this search, my people found
a fair valley; some three or four miles to the S.W. which leads directly
to the lemon-trees, and is the largest and finest valley in the island,
after that at the Chappel, and is either the next, or the next save one,
from the valley of the Chappel. At this valley, which is some three or
four miles from that of the Chappel, and is from it the fourth valley or
swamp one way, and from the point to the westward the second, so that it
cannot be missed, it is much better and easier for getting provisions or
water, and the water is better and clearer. The road or anchorage is all
of one even ground and depth, so that it is much better riding here than
at any other part of the island; and from this place, a person may go up
to the lemon-trees and back again in three hours. We here got some
thirty hogs and pigs, and twelve or fourteen hundred lemons; but if we
had laid ourselves out for the purpose, I dare say we might have got 200
hogs, besides many goats.
Continuing our voyage home, we got sight of the Lizard point on the 4th
June, 1614, our estimated longitude from the Cape of Good Hope being
then 27 deg. 20', besides two degrees carried by the currents; so that the
difference of longitude, between the Cape and the Lizard, is 29 deg. 20', or
very nearly. Though we had then only left the Cape of Good Hope three
months before, and were only two months and nine days from St Helena,
more than half our company was now laid up by the scurvy, of which two
had died. Yet we had plenty of victuals, as beef, bread, wine, rice,
oil, vinegar, and sugar, as much as every one chose. All our men have
taken their sickness since we fell in with Flores and Corvo; since which
we have had very cold weather, especially in two great storms, one from
the N. and N.N.E. and the other at N.W. so that it seemeth the sudden
coming out of long heat into the cold is a great cause of scurvy. All
the way from the Cape of Good Hope to the Azores, I had not one man
sick.
The 15th of June, 1614, we came into the river Thames, by the blessing
of God, it being that day six months on which we departed from Bantam in
Java.
SECTION XVIII.
_Observations made during the foregoing Voyage, by Mr Copland, Chaplain,
Mr Robert Boner, Master, and Mr Nicholas Whittington, Merchant_.[92]
[Footnote 92: Purch.
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