madly enough, indeed, for it was the wrong time of the year to undertake
such a voyage in that country; for, as the winds hang easterly all the
months from September to March, so they generally hang westerly all the
rest of the year, and blew right in our teeth; so that, as soon as we had,
with a kind of a land-breeze, stretched over about fifteen or twenty
leagues, and, as I may say, just enough to lose ourselves, we found the
wind set in a steady fresh gale or breeze from the sea, at west, W.S.W., or
S.W. by W., and never further from the west; so that, in a word, we could
make nothing of it.

On the other hand, the vessel, such as we had, would not lie close upon a
wind; if so, we might have stretched away N.N.W., and have met with a great
many islands in our way, as we found afterwards; but we could make nothing
of it, though we tried, and by the trying had almost undone us all; for,
stretching away to the north, as near the wind as we could, we had
forgotten the shape and position of the island of Madagascar itself; how
that we came off at the head of a promontory or point of land, that lies
about the middle of the island, and that stretches out west a great way
into the sea; and that now, being run a matter of forty leagues to the
north, the shore of the island fell off again above 200 miles to the east,
so that we were by this time in the wide ocean, between the island and the
main, and almost 100 leagues from both.

Indeed, as the winds blew fresh at west, as before, we had a smooth sea,
and we found it pretty good going before it, and so, taking our smallest
canoe in tow, we stood in for the shore with all the sail we could make.
This was a terrible adventure, for, if the least gust of wind had come, we
had been all lost, our canoes being deep and in no condition to make way in
a high sea.