Cape APOLLONIA.
From Sesthos, we reached in two or three Days Cape Palma; weighed Anchor from Jaque a Jaques, the 28th; from Bassau, the 30th; Assmee, the 31st; and anchored here the 6th of June. In this part of our Sailing may be observed,
1. That the Land from Sierraleon, excepting two or three Capes, and that about Drewin, appears low, and the first Land you see (as the Irishman says) is Trees; runs very streight without Bays or Inlets, which makes it difficult to distinguish, and impossible for us to land safely at; the Surff breaking all along to a great height, by means of a continued Swell from a vast Southern Ocean; a Sea which the Natives only understand, and can push their Canoos through. This seems a natural Prohibition to Strangers, and whence it follows in respect to Trade, that Ships are obliged to send their Boats with Goods near Shore, where the Natives meet them, and barter for Slaves, Gold, and Ivory; for at many places a Grandee Shippee (as they call it) affrights them, and they will venture then, as I imagine they can swim.
2. The Ground is very tough, our Consort and we losing three Anchors in heaving a Purchase; we stopping at Nights for fear of over-shooting Places of Trade.
3. We find pretty equal Soundings, about 14 Fathom Water, a League from Shore, unless at one noted place, a Lusus Naturæ, called the bottomless Pit, 7 Leagues below Jaque a Jaques, where the Depth is all at once unfathomable, and about three Miles over.
The great Sir Is. Newton, in his calculating the Force of Gravity, says, Bodies decrease in their Weight, and Force of their Fall, in the Proportion of the Squares of Distance from the Center; so that a Tun at the Surface of the Earth would weigh but ¼ of a Tun, removed one Semi-Diameter of the Earth higher; and at three Semi-Diameters, but the 1/16 of a Tun. In like manner their Velocities of Descent decrease: A Body at the Surface which would fall 16 foot in a Second, at 12000 Miles high, or three Semi-Diameters, would fall only 1/16, or one Foot in a Second; but at all given Distances, something, &c.
Now, according to this Rule, heaving a Lead in great depths of Water, the Velocity should increase with the descent or sinking of it; since in the Progress of Gravity, the falling Body in every space of Time receives a new Impulse, and continually acting, the same Gravity super-adds a new Velocity; so that at the end of two Seconds, to be double what it was at the end of the first, and so on, which here the Weight of the super-incumbent Medium should still more accelerate. Yet a Lead-line is drawn out perceptibly slower at the second, than the first hundred Fathoms: But perhaps this proceeds from the increasing quantity of Line to be drawn with it, not so equally apt to demerge, and a Nisus in all Bodies of Water, from below upwards, contrary to Gravity.
4. The Winds were more Southerly than above, checking the Land-Breeze, which obtaining brings strong unwholesome Smells from the Mangroves.
5. Their Diet being very slovenly, and much of a piece in this Track, I shall here entertain you with two or three of their Dishes.