The 22d of December we were in lat. 85° 28' S. within seven leagues of _Cape Aguillas_,[184] which shews like two islands from where we were, being to the S.E. of it. Coming more athwart, it resembled three isles, two bays, N.E. and N.W. making three conspicuous, low, and seemingly round points. We had ground in the evening in 77 fathoms upon ooze, being about five leagues south from shore, and, as I guess, nearly to the westwards of the shoalest part of the bank. When bound homewards on this coast, and finding no weather for observation, either for latitude or variation, we may boldly and safely keep in sixty fathoms with shelly ground, and when finding ooze we are very near Cape Aguillas. When losing ground with 120 fathoms line, we may be sure of having passed the cape, providing we be within the latitude of 36° S. The 23d we steered all night W. by N. and W.N.W. with afresh easterly gale, seeing the land all along about eight or ten leagues from us, all high land. About noon we were near the Cape of Good Hope, to which we sailed in seventeen hours from Cape Aguillas. Being within three leagues of the sugarloaf, we stood off and on all night. The 28th I received by the Dutch boat from the island, six sheep, the fattest I ever saw, the tail of one being twenty-eight inches broad, and weighing thirty-five pounds. I got a main-top-sail of the Dutch, of which we were in extreme want, and gave them a note on our company to receive twelve pounds twelve shillings for the same. For the fat sheep we got on Penguin island, we left lean in their room. The Dutch here behaved to us in a very honest and Christian-like manner. I left a note here of my arrival and the state of my company, as others had done before me. All the time we remained at the Cape, from the 23d December, 1609, to the 10th January, 1610, the wind was westerly and southerly; whereas the two former times of my being here, at the same season, it blew storms at east. [Footnote 184: This cape is only in lat. 34° 4S' S. So that their latitude here could not exceed 35° 10', giving an error in excess of eighteen minutes in the text--E.] The 10th January, 1610, we weighed and set sail homewards. The 20th about noon we passed the tropic of Capricorn; and that evening the Dutch officers came and supped with me, whom I saluted with three guns at parting. The 30th before day-light, we got sight of St Helena, having steered sixty-six leagues west in that latitude. We came to anchor a mile from shore, in twenty-two fathoms sandy ground, N.W. from the chapel. This island is about 270 or 280 leagues west from the coast of Africa. We were forced to steer close under the high land to find anchorage, the bank being so steep as to have no anchorage farther out.