On Thursday the 2d of August, we got again under sail, with a large cargo of fowls, lean goats, and monkies, which the people contrived to procure for old shirts, jackets and other articles of the like kind. The intolerable heat, and almost incessant rain, very soon affected our health, and the men began to fall down in fevers, notwithstanding all my attention and diligence to make them shift themselves before they slept, when they were wet.

On Wednesday the 8th, the Tamar fired a gun, upon which we shortened sail till she came up: we found that she had suffered no damage but the carrying away of her top-sail-yard; however, as we were obliged to make an easy sail till she had got up another, and the wind seemed to be coming again to the southward, we lost a good deal of way. We continued, to our great mortification, to observe that no fish would come near enough to our copper bottom for us to strike, though we saw the sea as it were quickened with them at a little distance. Ships in these hot latitudes generally take fish in plenty, but, except sharks, we were not able to catch one.

No event worthy of notice happened till Tuesday the 11th of September, when, about three o’clock in the afternoon, we saw Cape Frio, on the coast of Brazil; and about noon, on Thursday the 13th, we anchored in eighteen fathom, in

Voyaging Accounts