The Figure-head of the S. Raphael.
We remained five days at this place enjoying ourselves, and reposing from the hardships endured during a passage in the course of which all of us had been face to face with death.
[Malindi to São Braz.]
We left on Friday [January 11], in the morning, and on Saturday, which was the 12th of the month, we passed close to Mombaça. On Sunday [January 13] we anchored at the Baixos de S. Raphael,[229] where we set fire to the ship of that name, as it was impossible for us to navigate three vessels with the few hands that remained to us. The contents of this ship were transferred to the two other ships. We were here fifteen days,[230] and from a town in front of us, called Tamugate,[231] many fowls were brought to us for sale or barter in exchange for shirts and bracelets.
On Sunday, the 27th, we left this place with a fair wind. During the following night we lay to, and in the morning [January 28] we came close to a large island called Jamgiber [Zanzibar], which is peopled by Moors, and is quite ten leagues[232] from the mainland. Late on February 1, we anchored off the island of S. Jorge, near Moçambique and left at once. On the following day [February 2], in the morning, we set up a pillar in that island, where we had said mass on going out. The rain fell so heavily that we could not light a fire for melting the lead to fix the cross, and it therefore remained without one. We then returned to the ships.
On March 3 we reached the Angra de São Braz, where we caught many anchovies, seals and penguins, which we salted for our voyage. On the 12th we left, but when ten or twelve leagues from the watering-place the wind blew so strongly from the west, that we were compelled to return to this bay.
[São Braz to the Rio Grande.]
When the wind fell we started once more, and the Lord gave us such a good wind that on the 20th we were able to double the Cape of Good Hope. Those who had come so far were in good health and quite robust, although at times nearly dead from the cold winds which we experienced. This feeling, however, we attributed less to the cold than to the heat of the countries from which we had come.
We pursued our route with a great desire of reaching home. For twenty-seven days[233] we had the wind astern, and were carried by it to the neighbourhood of the island of São Thiago. To judge from our charts we were within a hundred leagues from it, but some supposed we were quite near. But the wind fell and we were becalmed. The little wind there was came from ahead. Thunderstorms,[234] which came from the land, enabled us to tell our whereabouts, and we plied to windward as well as we could.
On Thursday, the 25th of April, we had soundings of 35 fathoms. All that day we followed our route, and the least sounding we had was 20 fathoms. We nevertheless could get no sight of the land, but the pilots told us that we were near the shoals of the Rio Grande.[235]