to apprise them of the wreck; when they immediately assemble, arming themselves with daggers, guns, and cudgels. Sometimes two or three days or more elapse before they make their appearance on the coast, where they await the usual alternative of the crew either delivering themselves up to them, rather than perish with hunger, or throwing themselves into the sea. When the former takes place, quarrels frequently ensue among the Arabs, about the possession of the sailors, disputing for the captain or mate because he is better dressed, or discovers himself to them in some other way, and because they expect a larger ransom for him. They afterwards go in boats, and take every thing portable from the vessel, and then if the sea do not dash it to pieces, set fire to it, in order that it may not serve as a warning to the crews of other ships, and thereby save them from a similar misfortune.[191] Sometimes, in these wrecks, the poor seamen perceiving what savages they have to contend with, (though they are far from being so savage and inhospitable as their appearance indicates) determine on making resistance, and by means of cannon, small arms, &c. maintain a temporary defence, until a few falling from the superiority of numbers, they at length yield, and deliver themselves up. Vessels bound to Senegal, the coast of Guinea, Sierra Leone, the Cape de Verde Islands, should vigilantly watch the currents that invariably set in from the west towards this deceitful coast, which has in times past and now continues to enveigle ships to destruction. A flat hazy coast difficult to be perceived at a distance is the bane of navigators, who too often terminate their hard fate on this coast, it is impossible sufficiently to impress on the minds of our valuable mariners the dangers of this coast, and their subsequent sufferings; sufferings which no tongue can utter, no pen can accurately describe. About three leagues from this flat shore off Wedinoon, or the river Akassa, a bank of sand near the level of the water extends southward towards Cape Bojador, extremely dangerous to approach; moreover, I have reason to believe, that this coast is laid down too far to the eastward in all our maps.