We set our fore-sayle, and returned to our former harbour; from whence, within three or foure dayes, we set sayle againe with a faire winde, which continued with us till we came within a league of the mouth of the straite; here the winde tooke us againe contrary, and forced us to returne againe to our former port; where being ready to anchor, the wind scanted with us in such maner, as wee were forced to make a bourd. In which time, the winde and tide put us so farre to lee-wards, that we could by no meanes seize it: so we determined to goe to Elizabeth bay, but before we came at it, the night overtooke us; and this reach being dangerous and narrow, wee durst neither hull, nor trye,[160] or turne to and againe with a short sayle, and therefore bare alongst in the middest of the channell, till we were come into the broad reach, then lay a hull till the morning.
When we set sayle and ran alongst the coast, seeking with our boate some place to anchor in. Some foure leagues to the west-wards of Cape Froward, we found a goodly English bay. bay, which wee named English bay; where anchored, we presently went a shore, and found a goodly river of fresh water, and an old cannoa broken to peeces, and some two or three of the houses of the Indians, with peeces of seale stinking ripe. These houses are made in fashion of an oven seven or eight foote broad, with boughes of trees, and covered with other boughes, as our summer houses; and doubtles do serve them but for the summer time, when they come to fish, and profit themselves of the sea. For they retyre themselves in the winter into the country, where it is more temperate, and yeeldeth better sustenance: for on the mayne of the Straits, wee neyther saw beast nor fowle, sea fowle excepted, and a kind of blacke-bird, and two hoggs towards the beginning of the straites.
Here our ship being well moored, we began to supply our wood and water that we had spent. Which being a dayes worke, and the winde during many dayes contrary, Sloth cause of imagination. I endevoured to keepe my people occupied, to divert them from the imagination which some had conceived, that it behooved we should returne to Brasill, and winter there, and so shoot the straites in the spring of the yeare.
So one day, we rowed up the river, with our boat and light horseman, to discover it and the in-land: where having spent a good part of the day, and finding shold water, and many trees fallen thwart it, and little fruite of our labour, nor any thing worth the noting, we returned.
Another day we trayned our people a-shore, being a goodly sandie bay; another, we had a hurling of batchelers against married men. This day we were busied in wrestling, the other in shooting; so we were never idle, neyther thought we the time long.
SECTION XXXIV.
After we had past here some seven or eight dayes, one evening, with a flawe from the shore, our ship drove off into the channell, and before we could get up our anchor, and set our sayles, we were driven so farre to lee-wards, that we could not recover into the bay: and night comming on, with a short sayle, wee beate off and on till the morning. At the break of the day, conferring with the captaine and master of my ship what was best to be done, we resolved Tobias Cove. to seeke out Tobias Cove, which lyeth over against Cape Fryo, on the southern part of the straites, because in all the reaches of the straites, for the most part, the winde bloweth trade, and therefore little profit to be made by turning to winde-wards. And from the ilands of the Pengwins to the ende of the straites towards the South sea, there is no anchoring in the channell; and if we should be put to lee-wards of this cove, we had no succour till we came to the ilands of Pengwins: and some of our company which had bin with master Thomas Candish in the voyage in which he died, and in the same cove many weekes, undertooke to be our pilots thither. Whereupon we bare up, being some two leagues thither, having so much winde as we could scarce lye by it with our course and bonnet of each; but bearing up before the winde, wee put out our topsayles and spritsayle, and within a little while the winde Setting of the ship upon a rock. began to fayle us, and immediately our ship gave a mightie blow upon a rocke, and stucke fast upon it. And had we had but the fourth part of the wind which we had in all the night past, but a moment before we strucke the rocke, our shippe, doubtlesse, with the blow had broken her selfe all to peeces. But our provident and most gracious God which commaundeth wind and sea, watched over us, and delivered us with his powerfull hand from the unknowne danger and hidden destruction, that so we might prayse him for his fatherly bountie and protection, and with the prophet David say, Except the Lord, keepe the cittie, the watch-men watch in vaine; for if our God had not kept our shippe, we had bin all swallowed up alive without helpe or redemption; and therefore he for his mercies sake grant that the memoriall of his benefits doe never depart from before our eyes, and that we may evermore prayse him for our wonderfull deliverance, and his continuall providence by day and by night.
The company dismayed.
My company with this accident were much amazed, and not without just cause. Immediately we used our endevour to free our selves, and with our boates sounded round about our shippe, in the mean time assaying[161] our pumpe to know Diligence to free it. if our shippe made more water then her ordinary; we found nothing increased, and round about our shippe deepe water, saving under the mid-shippe, for shee was a floate a head and a sterne: and bearing some fathome before the mayne mast, and in no other part, was like to be our destruction; for being ebbing water, the waight in the head and sterne by fayling of the water, began to open her plankes in the middest; and upon the upper decke, they were gone one from another some two fingers, some more; which we sought to ease and remedie by lightning of her burden, and throwing into the sea all that came to hand; and laying out an anchor, we sought to wend her off:[162] and such was the will and force we put to the capsten and tackles fastned upon the cable, that we plucked the ring of the anchor out of the eye, but after recovered it, though not serviceable.