we looked to be utterly lost.  Under us were huge rocks, so sharp and cutting that no anchor could possibly hold the ship, and the shore was so excessively bad that nothing could take the land, which besides is full of tigers and savage people, who put all strangers to death, so that we had no hope or comfort, but only in God and a good conscience.  Yet, after we had lost our anchors, hoisting up our sails to try to get the ship upon some safer part of the coast, it pleased God, when no man looked for help, suddenly to fill our sails with a wind off the land, and so by good providence we escaped, thanks be to God.  The day following, being in a place where they are always wont to fish, we also fell a fishing, and caught so many, that they served the whole ships company all that day and part of the next.  One of our lines pulled up a coral of great size and value; for it is said that in this place, which indeed we saw by experience, that the corals grow on the rocks at the bottom of the sea in the manner of stalks, becoming hard and red.

Our day of peril was the 29th of July.  You must understand that, after passing the Cape of Good Hope, there are two ways to India, one within the island of Madagascar, or between that and Africa, called the Canal of Mozambique, which the Portuguese prefer, as they refresh themselves for a fortnight or a month at Mozambique, not without great need after being so long at sea, and thence in another month get to Goa.  The other course is on the outside of the island of St Lawrence or Madagascar, which they take when they set out too late, or come so late to the Cape as not to have time to stop at Mozambique, and then they go on their voyage in great heaviness, because in this way they have no port; and, by reason of the long navigation, and the want of fresh provisions and water, they fall into sundry diseases.  Their gums become sore, and swell in such a manner that they are fain to cut them away; their legs swell, and all their bodies become sore, and so benumbed that they cannot move hand nor foot, and so they die of weakness; while others fall into fluxes and agues, of which they die.  This was the way we were forced to take; and, although we had above an hundred and fifty sick, there did not die above seven or eight and twenty, which was esteemed a small loss in comparison with other times.  Though some of our fraternity were diseased in this sort, thanks be to God I had good health the whole way, contrary to the expectation of many:  May God send me as good health on the land, if it may be to his glory and service.  This way is full of hidden rocks and quicksands, so that sometimes we dared not sail by night; but by the goodness of God we saw nothing all the way to hurt us, neither did we ever find bottom till we came to the coast of India.