Daring Deeds of Famous Pirates: True stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneersChatterton, E. Keble (Edward Keble)
History
Daring Deeds of Famous Pirates: True stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneers
Chatterton, E. Keble (Edward Keble)
Pirates
And then they resumed their rowing, and instead of working till they
dropped for faintness, each man helped his neighbour when weariness was
stealing over the oarsmen. Never did a more united ship’s company put to
sea. One object alone did they all possess—to come to some Christian
land with the least possible delay. They had no charts, but Foxe and his
English fellow-seamen knew something about astronomy, and by studying the
stars in the heavens they roughly guessed the direction in which they
ought to steer.
With such haphazard navigation, however, they soon lost their position
when variable winds sprang up. Those light-draught ships made a good deal
of leeway, and as the wind had been from so many points of the compass
“they were now in a new maze.” But troubles do not come singly: they were
further troubled by their victuals giving out, so that it seemed as if
they had escaped from one form of punishment only to fall into a worse
kind of hardship. As many as eight died of starvation, but at last, on
the twenty-ninth day after leaving Alexandria, the others picked up the
land again and found it was the island of Candia. Their distance made
good had thus been about 350 miles north-west, which works out at about
twelve miles a day. But though this is ridiculously small it must be
borne in mind that their courses were many and devious, that to row for
twenty-nine consecutive days was a terrible trial for human endurance,
and latterly they were rowing with empty stomachs. They came at length
to Gallipoli in Candia and landed. Here the good abbot and monks of the
Convent of Amerciates received them with welcome and treated them with
every Christian hospitality. They refreshed these poor voyagers and
attended to their wants until well enough to resume their travels. Two
hundred and fifty-eight had survived, and good nourishment, with kindly
treatment on land, restored their health and vigour.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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