meat, that every person sitting at the table may eat, one rejoicing in
the company of another. They boil their rice in an earthen pot, made in
form of a sugar loaf, being full of holes, as our pots which we water
our gardens withal, and it is open at the great end, wherein they get
their rice dry, without any moisture. In the mean time they have ready
another great earthen pot, as set fast in a furnace, boiling full of
water, whereinto they put their pot with rice, by such measure, that
they swelling become soft at the first, and by their swelling stopping
the holes of the pot, admit no more water to enter, but the more they
are boiled, the harder and more firm substance they become. So that in
the end they are a firm and good bread, of the which with oil, butter,
sugar, and other spices, they make divers sorts of meats very pleasant
of taste, and nourishing to nature.

Not long before our departure, they told us that not far off there were
such great ships as ours, wishing us to beware; upon this our captain
would stay no longer. From Java Major we sailed for the Cape of Good
Hope, which was the first land we fell withal; neither did we touch with
it, or any other land, until we came to Sierra Leona, upon the coast of
Guinea; notwithstanding we ran hard aboard the cape, finding the
report of the Portugals to be most false who affirm that it is the
most dangerous cape of the world, never without intolerable storms and
present danger to travellers which come near the same. This cape is
a most stately thing, and the fairest cape we saw in the whole
circumference of the earth, and we passed by it the 18th of June. From
thence we continued our course to Sierra Leona, on the coast of Guinea,
where we arrived the 22nd of July, and found necessary provisions, great
store of elephants, oysters upon trees of one kind [mangrove], spawning
and increasing infinitely, the oyster suffering no bud to grow. We
departed thence the four and twentieth day.