different in color, and longer legs. However, we were very glad of it,
and it was very good meat; but the great joy that poor Xury came
with was to tell me he had found good water, and seen no wild mans.

  But we found afterwards that we need not take such pains for
water, for a little higher up the creek where we were we found the
water fresh when the tide was out, which flowed but a little way up;
so we filled our jars, and feasted on the hare we had killed, and
prepared to go on our way, having seen no footsteps of any human
creatures in that part of the country.

  As I had been one voyage to this coast before, I knew very well that
the Islands of the Canaries, and the Cape de Verde Islands also, lay
not far off from the coast. But as I had no instruments to take an
observation to know what latitude we were in, and did not exactly
know, or at least remember, what latitude they were in, I knew not
where to look for them, or when to stand off to sea towards them;
otherwise I might now easily have found some of these islands. But
my hope was, that if I stood along this coast till I came to that part
where the English traded, I should find some of their vessels upon
their usual design of trade, that would relieve and take us in.

  By the best of my calculation, that place where I now was must be
that country which, lying between the Emperor of Morocco's dominions
and the negroes, lies waste and uninhabited, except by wild beasts;
the negroes having abandoned it and gone farther south for fear of the
Moors, and the Moors not thinking it worth inhabiting, by reason of
its barrenness; and indeed both forsaking it because of the prodigious
number of tigers, lions, leopards, and other furious creatures which
harbor there; so that the Moors use it for their hunting only, where
they go like an army, two or three thousand men at a time; and
indeed for near a hundred miles together upon this coast we saw
nothing but a waste uninhabited country by day, and heard nothing
but howlings and roarings of wild beasts by night.

  Once or twice in the daytime I thought I saw the Pico of being the
high top of the Mountain Teneriffe in the Canaries, and had a great
mind to venture out in hopes of reaching thither; but having tried
twice, I was forced in again by contrary winds, the sea also going too
high for my little vessel; so I resolved to pursue my first design,
and keep along the shore.

  Several times I was obliged to land for fresh water after we had
left this place; and once in particular, being early in the morning,
we came to an anchor under a little point of land which was pretty
high; and the tide beginning to flow, we lay still to go farther in.
Xury, whose eyes were more about them than it seems mine were, calls
softly to me, and tells me that we had best go farther off the
shore; "For," says he, "look, yonder lies a dreadful monster on the
side of that hillock fast asleep." I looked where he pointed, and
saw a dreadful monster indeed, for it was a terrible great lion that
lay on the side of the shore, under the shade of a piece of the hill
that hung as it were a little over him. "Xury," says I, "you shall
go on shore and kill him." Xury looked frighted, and said, "Me kill!
he eat me at one mouth;" one mouthful he meant. However, I said no
more to the boy, but bade him lie still, and I took our biggest gun,
which was almost musketbore, and loaded it with a good charge of
powder, and with two slugs, and laid it down; then I loaded another
gun with two bullets; and the third (for we had three pieces) I loaded
with five smaller bullets. I took the best aim I could with the
first piece to have him shot into the head, but he lay so with his leg
raised a little above his nose, that the slugs hit his leg about the
knee, and broke the bone. He started up growling at first, but finding
his leg broke, fell down again, and then got up upon three legs and
gave the most hideous roar that ever I heard. I was a little surprised
that I had not hit him on the head. However, I took up the second
piece immediately, and, though he began to move off, fired again,
and shot him into the head, and had the pleasure to him drop, and make
but little noise, but lay struggling for life. Then Xury took heart,
and would have me let him go on shore. "Well, go," said I; so the
boy jumped into the water, and taking a little gun in one hand, swam
to shore with the other hand, and coming close to the creature, put
the muzzle of the piece to his ear, and shot him into the head
again, which despatched him quite.

  This was game indeed to us, but this was no food; and I was very
sorry to lose three charges of powder and shot upon a creature that
was good for nothing to us. However, Xury said he would have some of
him; so he comes on board, and asked me to give him the hatchet.
"For what, Xury?" said I. "Me cut off his head," said he. However,
Xury could not cut off his head, but he cut off a foot, and brought it
with him, and it was a monstrous great one.

  I bethought myself, however, that perhaps the skin of him might
one way or other be of some value to us; and I resolved to take off
his skin if I could. So Xury and I went to work with him; but Xury was
much the better workman at it, for I knew very ill how to do it.
Indeed, it took us both the whole day, but at last we got off the hide
of him, and spreading it on the top of our cabin, the sun
effectually dried it in two days' time, and it afterwards served me to
lie upon.

  After this stop we made on to the southward continually for ten or
twelve days, living very sparing on our provisions, which began to
abate very much, and going no oftener into the shore than we were
obliged to for fresh water. My design in this was to make the river
Gambia or Senegal - that is to say, anywhere about the Cape de Verde -
where I was in hopes to meet with some European ship; and if I did
not, I knew not what course I had to take, but to seek out for the
lands, or perish there among the negroes. I knew that all the ships