A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 09: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present TimeKerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 09: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
We sailed from Bantam, homeward bound, on the 1st November 1616. The 5th
January 1617, I was unable to weigh our anchor, owing to the violence
of the wind, to follow the Dragon to Penguin island. Ships that go round
the Cape of Good Hope from India, at this season of the year, ought not
to anchor short of Saldanha road, [Table Bay,] but ought to bear to
leeward for Penguin island, and anchor there with two anchors at once,
till the wind serve. In December, January, and February, the S.S.E. wind
blows there with great violence from new to full moon. Yet I hold it
dangerous to neglect this place, trusting to refreshments at St Helena,
a certainty for an uncertainty; as the obscurity of the sun and moon,
owing to thick mists at this season, may disappoint the most experienced
navigators, and occasion the loss of ship, cargo, and men. While at the
Cape, Corey came down with three sheep, and promised more, but went away
in great haste to his wife and family, who dwelt now farther from the
bay than formerly. It appears that the Hollanders had frightened the
natives, by landing and going up the country with above an hundred men
at once. Owing to this, our chief refreshment here was fresh fish.
The 9th April 1617, we passed through great quantities of sea-weeds,
called _seragasso_, which float in long ridges or rows along with the
wind, and at considerable distances from each other. This plant has a
leaf like samphire, but not so thick, and carries a very small yellow
berry. It reaches from 22° 20' to 32° both of N. latitude. We anchored
in the Downs on the 29th of May 1617.
3. _Brief Notice of the Ports, Cities, and Towns, inhabited by, and
traded with, by the Portuguese between the Cape of Good Hope and Japan,
in_ 1616.
The river of _Quame_, or _Cuamo_, on the eastern coast of Africa, where
they are said to trade yearly for gold, elephants teeth, ambergris, and
slaves. _Mozambique_, an island on the same coast, where they trade for
gold, ambergris, and slaves, in barter for iron, lead, tin, and Cambay
commodities, _Magadoxo_, which has abundance of elephants teeth, some
ambergris, and various kinds of drugs. From these ports they trade
yearly to Cambay, the Red Sea, and other places, observing the monsoons,
which blow W. in April, May, June, July, August, and part of September,
and the E. monsoon prevails an the other months. A few days between the
cessation of one monsoon and the commencement of the other, the winds
are variable, attended by calms, but become regular in a few days. To
the east of Sumatra, however, the two monsoons continue only five months
each way, the two intermediate months having variable winds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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