at a good distance. In one of these, which was a little one, and stood
further off, we put our gunpowder, and nothing else, for fear of danger; in
the other, which was bigger, we dressed our victuals, and put all our
necessaries; and in the third, which was biggest of all, we ate our
dinners, called our councils, and sat and diverted ourselves with such
conversation as we had one with another, which was but indifferent truly at
that time.

Our correspondence with the natives was absolutely necessary, and our
artist the cutler having made abundance of those little diamond-cut squares
of silver, with these we made shift to traffic with the black people for
what we wanted; for indeed they were pleased wonderfully with them, and
thus we got plenty of provisions. At first, and in particular, we got about
fifty head of black cattle and goats, and our cook's mate took care to cure
them and dry them, salt and preserve them for our grand supply; nor was
this hard to do, the salt and saltpetre being very good, and the sun
excessively hot; and here we lived about four months.

The southern solstice was over, and the sun gone back towards the
equinoctial, when we considered of our next adventure, which was to go over
the sea of Zanguebar, as the Portuguese call it, and to land, if possible,
upon the continent of Africa.

We talked with many of the natives about it, such as we could make
ourselves intelligible to, but all that we could learn from them was, that
there was a great land of lions beyond the sea, but that it was a great way
off. We knew as well as they that it was a long way, but our people
differed mightily about it; some said it was 150 leagues, others not above
100. One of our men, that had a map of the world, showed us by his scale
that it was not above eighty leagues. Some said there were islands all the