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On our voyage from Cochin to San Thome, while endeavouring to weather the south point of Ceylon, which lies far out to sea, the pilot was out in his reckoning, and laying-to in the night, thinking that he had passed hard by the Cape of Ceylon; when morning came we were far within the Cape, and fallen to leeward, by which it became now impossible to weather the island, as the wind was strong and contrary.
When I was at Pegu in August 1569, having got a considerable profit by my endeavours, I was desirous to return to my own country by way of St Thome, but in that case I should have been obliged to wait till next March; I was therefore advised to go by way of Bengal, for which country there was a ship ready to sail to the great harbour of Chittagong, whence there go small ships to Cochin in sufficient time to arrive there before the departure of the Portuguese ships for Lisbon, in which I was determined to return to Europe.
It has given me new views of the practicability of emancipation. It has been effected in Antigua, as appears from unquestionable authorities contained in the work of Messrs. Thome and Kimball, not merely without danger to the master, but without any sacrifice of his interest.
'Some of the most illustrious of these men, said Monsieur de Thome, alluding to the 'Theory of the Earth' by Buffon, 'have had the meanness to wear the plumage of the noble bird and refuse him all acknowledgment'; and he proved, by masterly quotations drawn from the encyclopaedic works of Swedenborg, that the great prophet had anticipated by over a century the slow march of human science.
If they once get to anchor on the coast, they may save their voyage with great labour. There also goes a large ship from Bengal every year, laden with all kinds of fine cotton cloth, and which usually arrives in the river of Pegu when the ship of San Thome is about to depart. The harbour which these two ships go to is called Cosmin.
He adjusted his unseeing eye-glass in this wise and lisped to the clerk, because it's "Hinglish, you know," to lisp: "Thir, thir, will you have the kindness to fuhnish me with thome papah and thome envelopehs!" The clerk measured that man quick, and he pulled out a drawer and took some envelopes and paper and cast them across the counter and turned away to his books.
It may be added that the boy-king was unfortunate; for he was murdered within two years of his accession, at the instance of the man who had murdered his father. San Thomé was acquired in 1749; and the story of the acquisition is not without interest.
The 3d of August we set sail from San Thome with the wind at S.W. The 22d we fell in with the island of Salt, one of the Cape Verds; and being told by a Scotsman whom we had taken among the French on the coast of Guinea, that there were fresh provisions to be had at this place, we came to anchor.
Also from San Thome they send great store of cotton yarn, dyed red by means of a root called saia, which colour never washes out. Every year there goes a great ship from San Thome to Pegu laden with a valuable cargo of these commodities.
"The author, John Huighen van Linschoten, left Goa with a fleet of ships, viz. The Santa Maria, Nuestra Sennora de la Concepçao, the San Christopher admiral, the San Thome which was the largest and most richly laden, and the Santa Cruz in which Linschoten sailed.
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