Leases, and having all these sorts of Land, I came acquainted with them all, and knew what each sort would produce (_viz._) Wheat, Barley, Maslin, Rice, Beans, Peas, Oats, Fetches, Flax, or Hemp: in all which I had a more than useful knowledge for one so young, taking a particular delight in observing it.” Vague as is this reference to his shore-going life, it is the only passage of the kind that I have met in his books, and for this reason therefore I reproduce it at length. Whilst he was at Acheen some of the people rebelled against the choice that had been made of a queen. Dampier, with others, hastened to take shelter in the ships in the road, fearing that if the rebels obtained the upper hand they would imprison him. He had indeed good cause to dread the effects of a prison upon his constitution, shaken and almost shattered as it was by long illness. There were two vessels at anchor, one of them fresh from England and short of provisions. He in consequence boarded the other, whose stores were tolerably plentiful, but she was so crowded with cargo that he could not find space to swing his hammock in; and as repose was absolutely essential to him, he carried his bed into the boat that had brought him off and lay in her for three or four days, fed by the people of the ship. He could obtain no rest. There happened a total eclipse of the moon, at which he gazed from the bottom of his boat, but he says: “I was so little curious that I remembered not so much as what Day of the Month it was, and I kept no journal of this Voyage as I did of my other; but only kept an account of several particular Remarks and Observations as they occurred to me.” When the disturbance ashore was quieted he returned to his lodging, and learning that the natives regarded the water of their river as charged with medicinal virtues, he determined to bathe in it, and after a few baths was so much benefited that he was able to get about again. In May, 1689, he took charge of a sloop that had been purchased by one Captain Tyler; but when the craft was loaded, the owner changed his mind and gave the command to a man named Minchin, who offered Dampier the post of mate. “I was forced to submit,” he says bitterly, “and accepted a Mate's employ under Captain Minchin.” They sailed in the middle of September for Malacca, at which place some of the people left Minchin to join another vessel that had been in company, so that Dampier and the captain were the only two white sailors on board. Shortly after starting they carried away their foreyard and brought up off a small island owned by the Dutch. Dampier called upon the governor to request his permission to cut down a tree. Our hero, as an old Campeché man, was not likely to be at a loss; and leaving the tree ready to be carried to the ship, he returned to the fort, dined with the governor, and then went aboard. Shortly afterwards his captain, together with a passenger and his wife, came ashore. The