When I had pursued this resolution about ten days longer, as I have said, I began to see that the land was inhabited; and in two or three places, as we sailed by, we saw people stand upon the sh.o.r.e to look at us; we could also perceive they were quite black, and stark naked. I was once inclined to have gone off sh.o.r.e to them; but Xury was my better counsellor, and said to me, "No go, no go." However, I hauled in nearer the sh.o.r.e that I might talk to them, and I found they run along the sh.o.r.e by me a good way: I observed they had no weapons in their hands, except one, who had a long slender stick, which Nury said was a lance, and that they would throw them a great way with a good aim; so I kept at a distance, but talked with them by signs as well as I could; and particularly made signs for something to eat; they beckoned to me to stop my boat, and they would fetch me some meat. Upon this I lowered the top of my sail, and lay by, and two of them ran up into the country, and in less than half an hour came back, and brought with them two pieces of dry flesh and some corn, such as is the produce of their country; but we neither knew what the one or the other was: however, we were willing to accept it, but how to come at it was our next dispute, for I was not for venturing on sh.o.r.e to them, and they were as much afraid of us: but they took a safe way for us all, for they brought it to the sh.o.r.e and laid it down, and went and stood a great way off till we fetched it on board, and then came close to us again.
We made signs of thanks to them, for we had nothing to make them amends; but an opportunity offered that very instant to oblige them wonderfully; for while we were lying by the sh.o.r.e came two mighty creatures, one pursuing the other (as we took it) with great fury from the mountains towards the sea; whether it was the male pursuing the female, or whether they were in sport or in rage, we could not tell, any more than we could tell whether it was usual or strange, but I believe it was the latter; because, in the first place, those ravenous creatures seldom appear but in the night; and in the second place, we found the people terribly frightened, especially the women. The man that had the lance or dart did not fly from them, but the rest did; however, as the two creatures ran directly into the water, they did not seem to offer to fall upon any of the Negroes, but plunged themselves into the sea, and swam about, as if they had come for their diversion: at last, one of them began to come nearer our boat than I at first expected; but I lay ready for him, for I had loaded my gun with all possible expedition, and bade Xury load both the others. As soon as he came fairly within my reach, I fired, and shot him directly in the head: immediately he sunk down into the water, but rose instantly, and plunged up and down, as if he was struggling for life, and so indeed he was: he immediately made to the sh.o.r.e; but between the wound, which was his mortal hurt, and the strangling of the water, he died just before he reached the sh.o.r.e.
It is impossible to express the astonishment of these poor creatures, at the noise and fire of my gun; some of them were even ready to die for fear, and fell down as dead with the very terror; but when they saw the creature dead, and sunk in the water, and that I made signs to them to come to the sh.o.r.e, they took heart and came to the sh.o.r.e, and began to search for the creature. I found him by his blood staining the water; and by the help of a rope, which I slung round him, and gave the Negroes to haul, they dragged him on sh.o.r.e, and found that it was a most curious leopard, spotted, and fine to an admirable degree; and the Negroes held up their hands with admiration, to think what it was I had killed him with.
The other creature, frightened with the flash of fire and the noise of the gun, swam on sh.o.r.e, and ran up directly to the mountains from whence they came; nor could I, at that distance, know what it was. I found quickly the Negroes were for eating the flesh of this creature, so I was willing to have them take it as a favour from me; which, when I made signs to them that they might take him, they were very thankful for. Immediately they fell to work with him; and though they had no knife, yet, with a sharpened piece of wood, they took off his skin as readily, and much more readily, than we could have done with a knife.
They offered me some of the flesh, which I declined, making as if I would give it them, but made signs for the skin, which they gave me very freely, and brought me a great deal more of their provisions, which, though I did not understand, yet I accepted. I then made signs to them for some water, and held out one of my jars to them, turning it bottom upward, to show that it was empty, and that I wanted to have it filled.
They called immediately to some of their friends, and there came two women, and brought a great vessel made of earth, and burnt, as I suppose, in the sun; this they set down to me, as before, and I sent Xury on sh.o.r.e with my jars, and filled them all three. The women were as stark naked as the men.
I was now furnished with roots and corn, such as it was, and water; and leaving my friendly Negroes, I made forward for about eleven days more, without offering to go near the sh.o.r.e, till I saw the land run out a great length into the sea, at about the distance of four or five leagues before me; and the sea being very calm, I kept a large offing, to make this point. At length, doubling the point, at about two leagues from the land, I saw plainly land on the other side, to seaward: then I concluded, as it was most certain indeed, that this was the Cape de Verd, and those the islands, called, from thence, Cape de Verd Islands.
However, they were at a great distance, and I could not well tell what I had best to do; for if I should be taken with a gale of wind, I might neither reach one nor the other.
In this dilemma, as I was very pensive, I stepped into the cabin, and sat me down, Xury having the helm; when, on a sudden, the boy cried out, Master, master, a ship with a sail! and the foolish boy was frightened out of his wits, thinking it must needs be some of his master"s ships sent to pursue us, when I knew we were gotten far enough out of their reach. I jumped out of the cabin, and immediately saw, not only the ship, but what she was, viz. that it was a Portuguese ship, and, as I thought, was bound to the coast of Guinea, for Negroes. But, when I observed the course she steered, I was soon convinced they were bound some other way, and did not design to come any nearer to the sh.o.r.e: upon which, I stretched out to sea as much as I could, resolving to speak with them, if possible.
With all the sail I could make, I found I should not be able to come in their way, but that they would be gone by before I could make any signal to them: but after I had crowded to the utmost, and began to despair, they, it seems, saw me, by the help of their perspective gla.s.ses, and that it was some European boat, which, they supposed, must belong to some ship that was lost; so they shortened sail, to let me come up. I was encouraged with this, and as I had my patron"s ensign on board, I made a waft of it to them, for a signal of distress, and fired a gun, both which they saw; for they told me they saw the smoke, though they did not hear the gun. Upon these signals, they very kindly brought to, and lay by for me; and in about three hours" time I came up with them.
They asked me what I was, in Portuguese, and in Spanish, and in French, but I understood none of them; but, at last, a Scotch sailor, who was on board, called to me, and I answered him, and told him I was an Englishman, that I had made my escape out of slavery from the Moors, at Sallee: they then bade me come on board, and very kindly took me in, and all my goods.
It was an inexpressible joy to me, which any one will believe, that I was thus delivered, as I esteemed it, from such a miserable, and almost hopeless, condition as I was in; and I immediately offered all I had to the captain of the ship, as a return for my deliverance; but he generously told me, he would take nothing from me, but that all I had should be delivered safe to me, when I came to the Brazils. "For," says he, "I have saved your life on no other terms than I would be glad to be saved myself; and it may, one time or other, be my lot to be taken up in the same condition. Besides," continued he, "when I carry you to the Brazils, so great a way from your own country, if I should take from you what you have, you will be starved there, and then I only take away that life I have given. No, no, Seignior Inglese," (Mr. Englishman,) says he; "I will carry you thither in charity, and these things will help to buy your subsistence there, and your pa.s.sage home again."
As he was charitable, in this proposal, so he was just in the performance, to a t.i.ttle; for he ordered the seamen, that none should offer to touch any thing I had: then he took every thing into his own possession, and gave me back an exact inventory of them, that I might have them, even so much as my three earthen jars.
As to my boat, it was a very good one; and that he saw, and told me he would buy it of me for the ship"s use; and asked me what I would have for it? I told him, he had been so generous to me in every thing, that I could not offer to make any price of the boat, but left it entirely to him: upon which, he told me he would give me a note of hand to pay me eighty pieces of eight for it at Brazil; and when it came there, if any one offered to give more, he would make it up. He offered me also sixty pieces of eight more for my boy Xury, which I was loth to take; not that I was not willing to let the captain have him, but I was very loth to sell the poor boy"s liberty, who had a.s.sisted me so faithfully in procuring my own. However, when I let him know my reason, he owned it to be just, and offered me this medium, that he would give the boy an obligation to set him free in ten years, if he turned Christian: upon this, and Xury saying he was willing to go to him, I let the captain have him.
We had a very good voyage to the Brazils, and arrived in the Bay de Todos los Santos, or All Saints" Bay, in about twenty-two days after.
And now I was once more delivered from the most miserable of all conditions of life; and what to do next with myself, I was now to consider.
The generous treatment the captain gave me, I can never enough remember: he would take nothing of me for my pa.s.sage, gave me twenty ducats for the leopard"s skin, and forty for the lion"s skin, which I had in my boat, and caused every thing I had in the ship to be punctually delivered to me; and what I was willing to sell, he bought of me; such as the case of bottles, two of my guns, and a piece of the lump of bees-wax,--for I had made candles of the rest: in a word, I made about two hundred and twenty pieces of eight of all my cargo; and with this stock, I went on sh.o.r.e in the Brazils.
I had not been long here, before I was recommended to the house of a good honest man, like himself, who had an ingeino as they call it, (that is, a plantation and a sugar-house.) I lived with him some time, and acquainted myself, by that means, with the manner of planting and making of sugar: and seeing how well the planters lived, and how they got rich suddenly, I resolved, if I could get a licence to settle there, I would turn planter among them: endeavouring, in the mean time, to find out some way to get my money, which I had left in London, remitted to me. To this purpose, getting a kind of a letter of naturalization, I purchased as much land that was uncured as my money would reach, and formed a plan for my plantation and settlement; such a one as might be suitable to the stock which I proposed to myself to receive from England.
I had a neighbour, a Portuguese of Lisbon, but: born of English parents, whose name was Wells, and in much such circ.u.mstances as I was. I call him my neighbour, because his plantation lay next to mine, and we went on very sociably together. My stock was but low, as well as his; and we rather planted for food than any thing else, for about two years.
However, we began to increase, and our land began to come into order; so that Ihe third year we planted some tobacco, and made each of us a large piece of ground ready for planting canes in the year to come: but we both wanted help; and now I found, more than before, I had done wrong in parting with my boy Xury.
But, alas! for me to do wrong, that never did right, was no great wonder. I had no remedy, but to go on: I had got into an employment quite remote to my genius, and directly contrary to the life I delighted in, and for which I forsook my father"s house, and broke through all his good advice: nay, I was coining into the very middle station, or upper degree of low life, which my father advised me to before; and which, if I resolved to go on with, I might as well have staid at home, and never have fatigued myself in the world, as I had done: and I used often to say to myself, I could have done this as well in England, among my friends, as have gone five thousand miles off to do it among strangers and savages, in a wilderness, and at such a distance as never to hear from any part of the world that had the least knowledge of me.
In this manner, I used to look upon my condition with the utmost regret.
I had n.o.body to converse with, but now and then this neighbour; no work to be done, but by the labour of my hands: and I used to say, I lived just like a man cast away upon some desolate island, that had n.o.body there but himself. But how just has it been! and how should all men reflect, that when they compare their present conditions with others that are worse, Heaven may oblige them to make the exchange, and be convinced of their former felicity by their experience: I say, how just has it been, that the truly solitary life I reflected on, in an island of mere desolation, should be my lot, who had so often unjustly compared it with the life which I then led, in which, had I continued, I had, in all probability, been exceeding prosperous and rich.
I was, in some degree, settled in my measures for carrying on the plantation, before my kind friend, the captain of the ship that took me up at sea, went back; for the ship remained there, in providing his lading, and preparing for his voyage, near three months; when, telling him what little stock I had left behind me in London, he gave me this friendly and sincere advice: "Seignior Inglese," says he, for so he always called me, "if you will give me letters, and a procuration here in form to me, with orders to the person who has your money in London, to send your effects to Lisbon, to such persons as I shall direct, and in such goods as are proper for this country, I will bring you the produce of them, G.o.d willing, at my return; but, since human affairs are all subject to changes and disasters, I would have you give orders for but one hundred pounds sterling, which, you say, is half your stock, and let the hazard be run for the first, so that if it come safe, you may order the rest the same way; and, if it miscarry, you may have the other half to have recourse to for your supply."
This was so wholesome advice, and looked so friendly, that I could not but be convinced it was the best course I could take; so I accordingly prepared letters to the gentlewoman with whom I left my money, and a procuration to the Portuguese captain, as he desired me.
I wrote the English captain"s widow a full account of all my adventures; my slavery, escape, and how I had met with the Portuguese captain at sea, the humanity of his behaviour, and what condition I was now in, with all other necessary directions for my supply; and when this honest captain came to Lisbon, he found means, by some of the English merchants there, to send over, not the order only, but a full account of my story to a merchant at London, who represented it effectually to her: whereupon she not only delivered the money, but, out of her own pocket, sent the Portuguese captain a very handsome present for his humanity and charity to me.
The merchant in London, vesting this hundred pounds in English goods, such as the captain had wrote for, sent them directly to him at Lisbon, and he brought them all safe to me at the Brazils: among which, without my direction, (for I was too young in my business to think of them,) he had taken care to have all sorts of tools, iron work, and utensils, necessary for my plantation, and which were of great use to me.
When this cargo arrived, I thought my fortune made, for I was surprised with the joy of it; and my good steward, the captain, had laid out the five pounds, which my friend had sent him as a present for himself, to purchase and bring me over a servant, under bond for six years" service, and would not accept of any consideration, except a little tobacco, which I would have him accept, being of my own produce.
Neither was this all: but my goods being all English manufactures, such as cloths, stuffs, baize, and things particularly valuable and desirable in the country, I found means to sell them to a very great advantage; so that I might say, I had more than four times the value of my first cargo, and was now infinitely beyond my poor neighbour, I mean in the advancement of my plantation: for the first thing I did, I bought me a Negro slave, and ail European servant also; I mean another besides that which the captain brought me from Lisbon.
But as abused prosperity is oftentimes made the very means of our adversity, so was it with me. I went on the next year with great success in my plantation; I raised fifty great rolls of tobacco on my own ground, more than I had disposed of for necessaries among my neighbours; and these fifty rolls, being each of above a hundred weight, were well cured, and laid by against the return of the fleet from Lisbon: and now, increasing in business and in wealth, my head began to be full of projects and undertakings beyond my reach; such as are, indeed, often the ruin of the best heads in business. Had I continued in the station I was now in, I had room for all the happy things to have yet befallen me, for which my father so earnestly recommended a quiet, retired life, and which he had so sensibly described the middle station of life to be full of: but other things attended me, and I was still to be the wilful agent of all my own miseries; and, particularly, to increase my fault, and double the reflections upon myself, which in my future sorrows I should have leisure to make, all these miscarriages were procured by my apparent obstinate adhering to my foolish inclination, of wandering about, and pursuing that inclination, in contradiction to the clearest views of doing myself good in a fair and plain pursuit of those prospects, and those measures of life, which nature and Providence concurred to present me with, and to make my duty.
As I had once done thus in breaking away from my parents, so I could not be content now, but I must go and leave the happy view I had of being a rich and thriving man in my new plantation, only to pursue a rash and immoderate desire of rising faster than the nature of the thing admitted; and thus I cast myself down again into the deepest gulph of human misery that ever man fell into, or perhaps could be consistent with life, and a state of health in the world.
To come, then, by just degrees, to the particulars of this part of my story:--You may suppose, that having now lived almost four years in the Brazils, and beginning to thrive and prosper very well upon my plantation, I had not only learned the language, but had contracted an acquaintance and friendship among my fellow-planters, as well as among the merchants at St. Salvador, which was our port; and that, in my discourses among them, I had frequently given them an account of my two voyages to the coast of Guinea, the manner of trading with the Negroes there, and how easy it was to purchase on the coast for trifles--such as beads, toys, knives, scissars, hatchets, bits of gla.s.s, and the like--not only gold dust, Guinea grains, elephants" teeth, &c. but Negroes, for the service of the Brazils, in great numbers.
They listened always very attentively to my discourses on these heads, but especially to that part which related to the buying Negroes; which was a trade, at that time, not only not far entered into, but, as far as it was, had been carried on by the a.s.sientos, or permission of the kings of Spain and Portugal, and engrossed from the public; so that few Negroes were bought, and those excessive dear.
It happened, being in company with some merchants and planters of my acquaintance, and talking of those things very earnestly, three of them came to me the next morning, and told me they had been musing very much upon what I had discoursed with them of the last night, and they came to make a secret proposal to me: and, after enjoining me to secrecy, they told me that they had a mind to fit out a ship to go to Guinea; that they had all plantations as well as I, and were straitened for nothing so much as servants; that as it was a trade that could not be carried on, because they could not publicly sell the Negroes when they came home, so they desired to make but one voyage, to bring the Negroes on sh.o.r.e privately, and divide them among their own plantations: and, in a word, the question was, whether I would go their supercargo in the ship, to manage the trading part upon the coast of Guinea; and they offered me that I should have an equal share of the Negroes, without providing any part of the stock.
This was a fair proposal, it must be confessed, had it been made to any one that had not a settlement and plantation of his own to look after, which was in a fair way of coming to be very considerable, and with a good stock upon it. But for me, that was thus entered and established, and had nothing to do but go on as I had begun, for three or four years more, and to have sent for the other hundred pounds from England; and who, in that time, and with that little addition, could scarce have failed of being worth three or four thousand pounds sterling, and that increasing too; for me to think of such a voyage, was the most preposterous thing that ever man, in such circ.u.mstances, could be guilty of.
But I, that was born to be my own destroyer, could no more resist the offer, than I could restrain my first rambling designs, when my father"s good counsel was lost upon me. In a word, I told them I would go with all my heart, if they would undertake to look after my plantation in my absence, and would dispose of it to such as I should direct, if I miscarried. This they all engaged to do, and entered into writings or covenants to do so; and I made a formal will, disposing of my plantation and effects, in case of my death; making the captain of the ship that had saved my life, as before, my universal heir; but obliging him to dispose of my effects as I had directed in my will; one half of the produce being to himself, and the other to be shipped to England.
In short, I took all possible caution to preserve my effects, and to keep up my plantation: had I used half as much prudence to have looked into my own interest, and have made a judgment of what I ought to have done and not to have done I had certainly never gone away from so prosperous an undertaking, leaving all the probable views of a thriving circ.u.mstance, and gone a voyage to sea, attended with all its common hazards, to say nothing of the reasons I had to expect particular misfortunes to myself.
But I was hurried on, and obeyed blindly the dictates of my fancy, rather than my reason: and accordingly, the ship being fitted out, and the cargo furnished, and all things done as by agreement, by my partners in the voyage, I went on board in an evil hour again, the 1st of September, 1659, being the same day eight years that I went from my father and mother at Hull, in order to act the rebel to their authority, and the fool to my own interest.
Our ship was about one hundred and twenty tons burden, carried six guns, and fourteen men, besides the master, his boy, and myself; we had on board no large cargo of goods, except of such toys as were fit for our trade with the Negroes, such as beads, bits of gla.s.s, sh.e.l.ls, and odd trifles, especially little looking-gla.s.ses, knives, scissars, hatchets, and the like.
The same day I went on board we set sail, standing away to the northward upon our own coast, with design to stretch over for the African coast.
When they came about ten or twelve degrees of northern lat.i.tude, which, it seems, was the manner of their course in those days, we had very good weather, only excessive hot all the way upon our own coast, till we came to the height of Cape St. Augustino; from whence, keeping farther off at sea, we lost sight of land, and steered as if we were bound for the isle Fernando de Noronha, holding our course N.E. by N. and leaving those isles on the east. In this course we pa.s.sed the line in about twelve days" time, and were by our last observation, in 7 degrees 22 minutes northern lat.i.tude, when a violent tornado, or hurricane, took us quite out of our knowledge: it began from the south-east, came about to the north-west, and then settled in the north-east; from whence it blew in such a terrible manner, that for twelve days together we could do nothing but drive, and, scudding away before it, let it carry us whither ever fate and the fury of the winds directed; and, during these twelve days, I need not say that I expected every day to be swallowed up; nor, indeed, did any in the ship expect to save their lives.
In this distress, we had, besides the terror of the storm, one of our men died of the calenture, and one man and a boy washed overboard. About the twelfth day, the weather abating a little, the master made an observation as well as he could, and found that he was in about 11 degrees north lat.i.tude, but that he was 22 degrees of longitude difference, west from Cape St. Augustino; so that he found he was got upon the coast of Guiana, or the north part of Brazil, beyond the river Amazons, toward that of the river Oroonoque, commonly called the Great River; and began to consult with me what course he should take, for the ship was leaky and very much disabled, add he was going directly back to the coast of Brazil.
I was positively against that; and looking over the charts of the sea-coast of America with him, we concluded there was no inhabited country for us to have recourse to, till we came within the circle of the Caribbee islands, and therefore resolved to stand away for Barbadoes; which by keeping off to sea, to avoid the in-draft of the bay or gulf of Mexico, we might easily perform, as we hoped, in about fifteen days" sail; whereas we could not possibly make our voyage to the coast of Africa without some a.s.sistance, both to our ship and ourselves.
With this design, we changed our course, and steered away N.W. by W. in order to reach some of our English islands, where I hoped for relief: but our voyage was otherwise determined; for being in the lat.i.tude of 12 degrees 18 minutes, a second storm came upon us, which carried us away with the same impetuosity westward, and drove us so out of the very way of all human commerce, that had all our lives been saved, as to the sea, we were rather in danger of being devoured by savages than ever returning to our own country.
In this distress, the wind still blowing very hard, one of our men early in the morning cried out, Land! and we had no sooner run out of the cabin to look out, in hopes of seeing whereabouts in the world we were, but the ship struck upon a sand, and in a moment, her motion being so stopped, the sea broke over her in such a manner, that we expected we should all have perished immediately; and we were immediately driven into our close quarters, to shelter us from the very foam and spray of the sea.
It is not easy for any one, who has not been in the like condition, to describe or conceive the consternation of men in such circ.u.mstances; we knew nothing where we were, or upon what land it was we were driven, whether an island or the main, whether inhabited or not inhabited; and as the rage of the wind was still great, though rather less than at first, we could not so much as hope to have the ship hold many minutes, without breaking in pieces, unless the wind, by a kind of miracle, should immediately turn about. In a word, we sat looking upon one another, and expecting death every moment, and every man acting accordingly, as preparing for another world; for there was little or nothing more for us to do in this: that which was our present comfort, and all the comfort we had, was, that, contrary to our expectation, the ship did not break yet, and that the master said the wind began to abate.
Now, though we thought that the wind did a little abate, yet the ship having thus struck upon the sand, and sticking too fast for us to expect her getting off, we were in a dreadful condition indeed, and had nothing to do but to think of saving our lives as well as we could. We had a boat at our stern just before the storm, but she was first staved by dashing against the ship"s rudder, and, in the next place, she broke away, and either sunk, or was driven off to sea; so there was no hope from her: we had another boat on board, but how to get her off into the sea was a doubtful thing; however, there was no room to debate, for we fancied the ship would break in pieces every minute, and some told us she was actually broken already.
In this distress, the mate of our vessel laid hold of the boat, and with the help of the rest of the men, they got her flung over the ship"s side; and getting all into her, let her go, and committed ourselves, being eleven in number, to G.o.d"s mercy, and the wild sea: for though the storm was abated considerably, yet the sea went dreadful high upon the sh.o.r.e, and might be well called _den wild zee_, as the Dutch call the sea in a storm.
And now our case was very dismal indeed; for we all saw plainly, that the sea went so high, that the boat could not live, and that we should be inevitably drowned. As to making sail, we had none; nor, if we had, could we have done any thing with it; so we worked at the oar towards the land, though with heavy hearts, like men going to execution; for we all knew that when the boat came nearer to the sh.o.r.e, she would be dashed in a thousand pieces by the breach of the sea. However, we committed our souls to G.o.d in the most earnest manner; and the wind driving us towards the sh.o.r.e, we hastened our destruction with our own hands, pulling as well as we could towards land.
What the sh.o.r.e was--whether rock or sand, whether steep or shoal--we knew not; the only hope that could rationally give us the least shadow of expectation, was, if we might happen into some bay or gulf, or the mouth of some river, where by great chance we might have run our boat in, or got under the lee of the land, and perhaps made smooth water. But there was nothing of this appeared; and as we made nearer and nearer the sh.o.r.e, the land looked more frightful than the sea.
After we had rowed, or rather driven, about a league and a half, as we reckoned it, a raging wave, mountain-like, came rolling astern of us, and plainly bade us expect the _coup de grace_. In a word, it took us with such a fury, that it overset the boat at once; and separating us, as well from the boat as from one another, gave us not time hardly to say, "O G.o.d!" for we were all swallowed up in a moment.
Nothing can describe the confusion of thought which I felt, when I sunk into the water; for though I swam very well, yet I could not deliver myself from the waves so as to draw my breath, till that wave having driven me, or rather carried me, a vast way on towards the sh.o.r.e, and having spent itself, went back, and left me upon the land almost dry, but half dead with the water I took in. I had so much presence of mind, as well as breath left, that seeing myself nearer the main land than I expected, I got upon my feet, and endeavoured to make on towards the land as fast as I could, before another wave should return and take me up again; but I soon found it was impossible to avoid it; for I saw the sea come after me as high as a great hill, and as furious as an enemy, which I had no means or strength to contend with: my business was to hold my breath, and raise myself upon the water, if I could; and so, by swimming, to preserve my breathing, and pilot myself towards the sh.o.r.e, if possible; my greatest concern now being, that the wave, as it would carry me a great way towards the sh.o.r.e when it came on, might not carry me back again with it when it gave back towards the sea.
The wave that came upon me again, buried me at once twenty or thirty feet deep in its own body; and I could feel myself carried with a mighty force and swiftness towards the sh.o.r.e a very great way; but I held my breath, and a.s.sisted myself to swim still forward with all my might. I was ready to burst with holding my breath, when, as I felt myself rising up, so, to my immediate relief, I found my head and hands shoot out above the surface of the water; and though it was not two seconds of time that I could keep myself so, yet it relieved me greatly, gave me breath, and new courage. I was covered again with water a good while, but not so long but I held it out; and finding the water had spent itself, and began to return, I struck forward against the return of the waves, and felt ground again with my feet. I stood still a few moments, to recover breath, and till the water went from me, and then took to my heels, and ran with what strength I had farther towards the sh.o.r.e. But neither would this deliver me from the fury of the sea, which came pouring in after me again; and twice more I was lifted up by the waves and carried forwards as before, the sh.o.r.e being very flat.