friends Mr. Allen and Mr. Marre gave me) of six inches diameter, and toucht curiously with the best loadstone in England; a loadstone to refresh any of these if occasion were, whose poles were marked for fear of mistaking.” Further, Captain James carried a watch-clock, “a table every-day calculated, correspondent to the latitude according to Mr. Gunter's directions in his book, the better to keep our time and our compass to judge of our course.” A chestful of mathematical books, the Collections of Purchas and Hackluyt, and “two pair of curious globes.” Such was the scientific equipment of a man bound on a Polar voyage in the year 1632. It is not to be supposed that such mariners as Dampier and his buccaneering associates went half as well furnished. Indeed their poverty in this direction was so great that one may read here and there of their employing their leisure on shipboard in making quadrants to replace those which were lost or worn out. Their Norie, Raper, and Nautical Almanac in one was the crude _Speculum Nauticum_ of Wagener, made English by Anthony Ashley in 1588, and universally known by the seamen in those days as _Waggoner_.[5] Sir Thomas Browne, writing in 1664 to his son Thomas, a naval officer, says, “_Waggoner_ you will not be without, which will teach the particular coasts, depths of roades, and how the land riseth upon the several points of the compass.” It will not be supposed that _Waggoner's_ instructions were very trustworthy. The art of surveying was scarcely understood; charts even in Dampier's time were absurdly ill-digested, and portions of the world are barely recognisable in the grotesque tracings. Therefore it happened that the early mariner was forced to depend upon his own judgment and experience to a degree scarce realisable in these days of exact science and matured inventions. He hardly understood what was signified by the variation of the compass, and there was very little outside the Pole Star that was not doubtful. But happily for him there was no obligation of hurry. There was no managing owner to worry him. Prompt despatch was no condition of the charter-party. His was the day of ambling, and he was happy if he could confirm with his lead and log-line the reckonings he arrived at with his forestaff.