PART II. A VOYAGE TO BROBDINGNAG.
CHAPTER I.
[A great storm described; the long boat sent to fetch water; the author
goes with it to discover the country. He is left on shore, is
seized by one of the natives, and carried to a farmer’s house.
His reception, with several accidents that happened there. A description
of the inhabitants.]
Having been condemned, by nature and fortune, to active and restless
life, in two months after my return, I again left my native country,
and took shipping in the Downs, on the 20th day of June, 1702, in the
Adventure, Captain John Nicholas, a Cornish man, commander, bound for
Surat. We had a very prosperous gale, till we arrived at the Cape
of Good Hope, where we landed for fresh water; but discovering a leak,
we unshipped our goods and wintered there; for the captain falling sick
of an ague, we could not leave the Cape till the end of March.
We then set sail, and had a good voyage till we passed the Straits of
Madagascar; but having got northward of that island, and to about five
degrees south latitude, the winds, which in those seas are observed
to blow a constant equal gale between the north and west, from the beginning
of December to the beginning of May, on the 19th of April began to blow
with much greater violence, and more westerly than usual, continuing
so for twenty days together: during which time, we were driven a little
to the east of the Molucca Islands, and about three degrees northward
of the line, as our captain found by an observation he took the 2nd
of May, at which time the wind ceased, and it was a perfect calm, whereat
I was not a little rejoiced. But he, being a man well experienced
in the navigation of those seas, bid us all prepare against a storm,
which accordingly happened the day following: for the southern wind,
called the southern monsoon, began to set in.
Finding it was likely to overblow, we took in our sprit-sail, and stood
by to hand the fore-sail; but making foul weather, we looked the guns
were all fast, and handed the mizen. The ship lay very broad off,
so we thought it better spooning before the sea, than trying or hulling.
We reefed the fore-sail and set him, and hauled aft the fore-sheet;
the helm was hard a-weather. The ship wore bravely. We belayed
the fore down-haul; but the sail was split, and we hauled down the yard,
and got the sail into the ship, and unbound all the things clear of
it. It was a very fierce storm; the sea broke strange and dangerous.
We hauled off upon the laniard of the whip-staff, and helped the man
at the helm. We would not get down our topmast, but let all stand,
because she scudded before the sea very well, and we knew that the top-mast
being aloft, the ship was the wholesomer, and made better way through
the sea, seeing we had sea-room. When the storm was over, we set
fore-sail and main-sail, and brought the ship to. Then we set
the mizen, main-top-sail, and the fore-top-sail. Our course was
east-north-east, the wind was at south-west. We got the starboard
tacks aboard, we cast off our weather-braces and lifts; we set in the
lee-braces, and hauled forward by the weather-bowlings, and hauled them
tight, and belayed them, and hauled over the mizen tack to windward,
and kept her full and by as near as she would lie.
During this storm, which was followed by a strong wind west-south-west,
we were carried, by my computation, about five hundred leagues to the
east, so that the oldest sailor on board could not tell in what part
of the world we were. Our provisions held out well, our ship was
staunch, and our crew all in good health; but we lay in the utmost distress
for water. We thought it best to hold on the same course, rather
than turn more northerly, which might have brought us to the north-west
part of Great Tartary, and into the Frozen Sea.
|
