Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/40

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direction of the native pilots, who were familiar with the navigation, the expedition passed swiftly through the Mozambique channel, and without calling at any place, rounded, in fine weather, the dreaded Cape of Good Hope, and saw "the turn which the coast takes towards Portugal with shouts of joy, and prayers and praises for the benefits that had been granted to them."

"When it was night," continues Correa in his narrative, "the Moorish pilots took observations with the stars, so that they made a straight course. When they were on the line they met with showers and calms, so that our men knew that they were in the region of Guinea. Here they encountered contrary winds, which came from the Straits of Gibraltar, so that they took a tack out to sea on a bowline, going as close to the wind as possible. They sailed thus, with much labour at the pumps, for the ships made much water with the strain of going on a bowline, and in this part of the sea they found some troublesome weed, of which there was much that covered the sea, which had a leaf like sargarço, which name they gave to it, and so named it for ever. Our pilots got sight of the north star at the altitude which they used to see it in Portugal, by which they knew they were near Portugal. They then ran due north until they sighted the islands, at which their joy was unbounded, and they reached them and ran along them to Terceira, at which they anchored in the port of Angra, at the end of August. There the ships could hardly keep afloat by means of