CHAPTER III. OF MY ARRIVING AT SURAT, AND OF THE POSTURE OF AFFAIRS THERE. The other vessels coming in that same evening, we left Tangier the next day, and continued in company our voyage along the Africk coast. And although we caught sight not once nor twice of the galleys of those pirates that infest these waters, yet they dared not attempt us, seeing our force, and we had opportunity to admire the strange things that met our view. For in these climates there is many things are not as they are with us, as the sea and the weather and the length of day, and the very stars themselves, not to speak of the poor heathens that boarded us more than once, more especially off the colony of the Gamboa.[13] And on crossing of the Line, moreover we were made initiate in those mysteries which, as I suppose, are a relic of antique superstition, but which the seamen do hug mightily; yea, even the wisest among ’em. In all these matters, then, was there much to instruct us, and our good master and his mate were always willing to tell us whatever we desired. But as we drew further to the south, and neared again the temperate climates, and in especial as we passed that cape called by the Portugals _Bon Esperanzo_,[14] where the Dutch have a few forts, we were assailed by such storms as we were like to have left our bones in the South Seas. Also the continual tossing and rolling of the ship did bring on again, both in Mr Spender and myself, such an access of that dread malady whereof we had dreamed ourselves cured, as we could do little else but lie and groan, desiring that death which seemed at once too close to us and too far away. But when we had left well behind us that evil and dangerous Cape, and were entered the Indian Ocean, the which we found, in our traversing it, prodigious still and pleasant, we revived, and did begin to look forward with great anticipation to our arriving in East India.