chap, xxix FROM ST. HELENA TO HOLLAND 315
passed
a bad time, as there is no house in the island. Three days after our
departure from St. Helena the crew commenced to pray every morning and
evening, but I remarked that they had not done so during the twenty-two
days we spent in the roads ; this I thought strange, as if one should
not pray to God when out of danger as well as while in danger.
On
the eleventh day after our departure we crossed the line with a
favourable wind. I know that many have written that the heat is
insupportable under the line, and that the water and some of the
provisions become decomposed, but we experienced nothing of the kind ;
elsewhere in the voyage we felt much greater heat. I am quite ready to
admit that if a calm had caught us under the line, instead of the
propitious wind which we experienced, we should have felt the heat more
than we did.
After
some days' sailing we spent three in passing a bank where the sea is
full of a plant, the leaf of which resembles the leaves of the olive.1
This plant has fruits like large white gooseberries, but they contain
nothing inside. At length, after many more days' sailing, we sighted
the coasts of Iceland, and afterwards the Island of Ferelle,2
where the Dutch fleet already awaited us, constantly firing cannon
shots to intimate its position to us. As soon as the two fleets sighted
one another, each vessel fired all its guns, and took up position by
its patron, that of the Admiral by the Admiral, that of the
Vice-Admiral by the Vice-Admiral, and so of all the others. We numbered
eleven vessels, there came also eleven other vessels to meet us, and
after each had recognized its mate, the first thing that was done was
to send on board the vessels from India a quantity of supplies, such as
casks of beer, smoked meat, butter, cheese, good white biscuit, and for
every vessel one cask each of Rhine, French, and Spanish wines. As soon
as the supplies were on board our vessel, the soldiers and sailors took
three or four of the casks of beer, which they placed on end close to
the mainmast, broke them open with a cannon-ball, and they were then
1
This was the sargossa weed, Fucus natans, or sargassum bucoiferum which
is found in the Paoific. The so-called fruits are the floats. ' Faroe Islands.
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