ABSTRACT
In these labours and occupations we were continuing our life on those sterile, deserted shores, putting our hope first in God and secondly in our two ships or barks called Sevillans, 1 until, in the beginning of the month ofjanuary, having been detained in that place for seven months we were to put them into the water, which we did, with the help and favour of God Our Lord, more easily than was promised by the little equipment we had for the task, our supply of oakum and tar for the ships' bottoms being completely exhausted. Since we lacked pitch and tar, we used fine benzoin of almonds and another kind of fragrant benzoin with some frankincense which made an admirable mixture and a costly, sweet-smelling, excellent tar, for nothing is so ingenious as necessity. And since we were very impatient to be gone and to experience our final fortune, whether good or bad, we worked feverishly to make the ships ready for the voyage, because we were already much disturbed at finding ourselves in that place for so long a time and also because we did not have enough rice, of which we selected 8o bales in the best condition and agreed to reserve them for the voyage. 2
There were some who spoke disapprovingly of our leaving so hastily, giving two reasons for their disapproval. The first was that winter had not completely left that place, so that we could fear contrary winds and storms at the Cape of Good Hope, a very dangerous thing to contend with in such small vessels. The bad part was that the validity of this reasoning and fear was borne out as I shall presently relate by what we in fact experienced. The 2nd was that the people were
thoroughly exhausted and weak from lack of food, and because from that time forward the crops were to be harvested, there were those who believed that for this reason also we should delay for a month and a half or two so that the people could avail themselves of the abundance of crops, which were millet, and recover their strength; for we had already observed a place where we could get an abundance of it in the event that the Cafres should be unwilling to sell it to us. With this we could supply our immediate needs and provide ourselves with sufficient food for the voyage in order to avoid the shortage and wretchedness we experienced later, when we had ample opportunity to verify that this second argument also was well-founded. It was not accepted, however, along with many other pieces of advice of various kinds, which were given on the occasions which presented themselves and which demanded them.
