The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton

I laughed at him, and told him I did not know what I might come to hereafter, but as our case was now, I should make no scruple to take the first ship I came at to get our liberty; I only wished we could see one, and come at her. Just while we were talking, one of our men that was at the door of our hut, told us that the carpenter, who it seems was upon a hill at a distance, cried out, "A sail! a sail!"

We all turned out immediately; but, though it was very clear weather, we could see nothing; but the carpenter continuing to halloo to us, "A sail! a sail!" away we run up the hill, and there we saw a ship plainly; but it was at a very great distance, too far for us to make any signal to her. However, we made a fire upon the hill, with all the wood we could get together, and made as much smoke as possible. The wind was down, and it was almost calm; but as we thought, by a perspective glass which the gunner had in his pocket, her sails were full, and she stood away large with the wind at E.N.E., taking no notice of our signal, but making for the Cape de Bona Speranza; so we had no comfort from her.

We went, therefore, immediately to work about our intended canoe; and, having singled out a very large tree to our minds, we fell to work with her; and having three good axes among us, we got it down, but it was four days' time first, though we worked very hard too. I do not remember what wood it was, or exactly what dimensions, but I remember that it was a very large one, and we were as much encouraged when we launched it, and found it swam upright and steady, as we would have been at another time if we had had a good man-of-war at our command.

She was so very large, that she carried us all very, very easily, and would have carried two or three tons of baggage with us; so that we began to consult about going to sea directly to Goa; but many other considerations checked that thought, especially when we came to look nearer into it; such as want of provisions, and no casks for fresh water; no compass to steer by; no shelter from the breach of the high sea, which would certainly founder us; no defence from the heat of the weather, and the like; so that they all came readily into my project, to cruise about where we were, and see what might offer.

Accordingly, to gratify our fancy, we went one day all out to sea in her together, and we were in a very fair way to have had enough of it; for when she had us all on board, and that we were gotten about half a league to sea, there happening to be a pretty high swell of the sea, though little or no wind, yet she wallowed so in the sea, that we all of us thought she would at last wallow herself bottom up; so we set all to work to get her in nearer the shore, and giving her fresh way in the sea, she swam more steady, and with some hard work we got her under the land again.

We were now at a great loss; the natives were civil enough to us, and came often to discourse with us; one time they brought one whom they showed respect to as a king with them, and they set up a long pole between them and us, with a great tassel of hair hanging, not on the top, but something above the middle of it, adorned with little chains, shells, bits of brass, and the like; and this, we understood afterwards, was a token of amity and friendship; and they brought down to us victuals in abundance, cattle, fowls, herbs, and roots; but we were in the utmost confusion on our side; for we had nothing to buy with, or exchange for; and as to giving us things for nothing they had no notion of that again. As to our money, it was mere trash to them, they had no value for it; so that we were in a fair way to be starved. Had we had but some toys and trinkets, brass chains, baubles, glass beads, or, in a word, the veriest trifles that a shipload of would not have been worth the freight, we might have bought cattle and provisions enough for an army, or to victual a fleet of men-of-war; but for gold or silver we could get nothing.

Upon this we were in a strange consternation. I was but a young fellow, but I was for falling upon them with our firearms, and taking all the cattle from them, and send them to the devil to stop their hunger, rather than be starved ourselves; but I did not consider that this might have brought ten thousand of them down upon us the next day; and though we might have killed a vast number of them, and perhaps have frighted the rest, yet their own desperation, and our small number, would have animated them so that, one time or other, they would have destroyed us all.

In the middle of our consultation, one of our men who had been a kind of a cutler, or worker in iron, started up and asked the carpenter if, among all his tools, he could not help him to a file. "Yes," says the carpenter, "I can, but it is a small one." "The smaller the better," says the other. Upon this he goes to work, and first by heating a piece of an old broken chisel in the fire, and then with the help of his file, he made himself several kinds of tools for his work. Then he takes three or four pieces of eight, and beats them out with a hammer upon a stone, till they were very broad and thin; then he cuts them out into the shape of birds and beasts; he made little chains of them for bracelets and necklaces, and turned them into so many devices of his own head, that it is hardly to be expressed.

When he had for about a fortnight exercised his head and hands at this work, we tried the effect of his ingenuity; and, having another meeting with the natives, were surprised to see the folly of the poor people. For a little bit of silver cut in the shape of a bird, we had two cows, and, which was our loss, if it had been in brass, it had been still of more value. For one of the bracelets made of chain-work, we had as much provision of several sorts, as would fairly have been worth, in England, fifteen or sixteen pounds; and so of all the rest. Thus, that which when it was in coin was not worth sixpence to us, when thus converted into toys and trifles, was worth a hundred times its real value, and purchased for us anything we had occasion for.

In this condition we lived upwards of a year, but all of us began to be very much tired of it, and, whatever came of it, resolved to attempt an escape. We had furnished ourselves with no less than three very good canoes; and as the monsoons, or trade-winds, generally affect that country, blowing in most parts of this island one six months of a year one way, and the other six months another way, we concluded we might be able to bear the sea well enough. But always, when we came to look into it, the want of fresh water was the thing that put us off from such an adventure, for it is a prodigious length, and what no man on earth could be able to perform without water to drink.

Being thus prevailed upon by our own reason to set the thoughts of that voyage aside, we had then but two things before us; one was, to put to sea the other way; viz., west, and go away for the Cape of Good Hope, where, first or last, we should meet with some of our own country ships, or else to put for the mainland of Africa, and either travel by land, or sail along the coast towards the Red Sea, where we should, first or last, find a ship of some nation or other, that would take us up; or perhaps we might take them up, which, by-the-bye, was the thing that always ran in my head.

It was our ingenious cutler, whom ever after we called silversmith, that proposed this; but the gunner told him, that he had been in the Red Sea in a Malabar sloop, and he knew this, that if we went into the Red Sea, we should either be killed by the wild Arabs, or taken and made slaves of by the Turks; and therefore he was not for going that way.

Upon this I took occasion to put in my vote again. "Why," said I, "do we talk of being killed by the Arabs, or made slaves of by the Turks? Are we not able to board almost any vessel we shall meet with in those seas; and, instead of their taking us, we to take them?" "Well done, pirate," said the gunner (he that had looked in my hand, and told me I should come to the gallows), "I'll say that for him," says he, "he always looks the same way. But I think, of my conscience, it is our only way now." "Don't tell me," says I, "of being a pirate; we must be pirates, or anything, to get fairly out of this cursed place."

In a word, they concluded all, by my advice, that our business was to cruise for anything we could see. "Why then," said I to them, "our first business is to see if the people upon this island have no navigation, and what boats they use; and, if they have any better or bigger than ours, let us take one of them." First, indeed, all our aim was to get, if possible, a boat with a deck and a sail; for then we might have saved our provisions, which otherwise we could not.

We had, to our great good fortune, one sailor among us, who had been assistant to the cook; he told us, that he would find a way how to preserve our beef without cask or pickle; and this he did effectually by curing it in the sun, with the help of saltpetre, of which there was great plenty in the island; so that, before we found any method for our escape, we had dried the flesh of six or seven cows and bullocks, and ten or twelve goats, and it relished so well, that we never gave ourselves the trouble to boil it when we ate it, but either broiled it or ate it dry. But our main difficulty about fresh water still remained; for we had no vessel to put any into, much less to keep any for our going to sea.

But our first voyage being only to coast the island, we resolved to venture, whatever the hazard or consequence of it might be, and in order to preserve as much fresh water as we could, our carpenter made a well athwart the middle of one of our canoes, which he separated from the other parts of the canoe, so as to make it tight to hold the water and covered so as we might step upon it; and this was so large that it held near a hogshead of water very well. I cannot better describe this well than by the same kind which the small fishing-boats in England have to preserve their fish alive in; only that this, instead of having holes to let the salt water in, was made sound every way to keep it out; and it was the first invention, I believe, of its kind for such an use; but necessity is a spur to ingenuity and the mother of invention.

It wanted but a little consultation to resolve now upon our voyage. The first design was only to coast it round the island, as well to see if we could seize upon any vessel fit to embark ourselves in, as also to take hold of any opportunity which might present for our passing over to the main; and therefore our resolution was to go on the inside or west shore of the island, where, at least at one point, the land stretching a great way to the north-west, the distance is not extraordinary great from the island to the coast of Africa.

Such a voyage, and with such a desperate crew, I believe was never made, for it is certain we took the worst side of the island to look for any shipping, especially for shipping of other nations, this being quite out of the way; however, we put to sea, after taking all our provisions and ammunition, bag and baggage, on board; we had made both mast and sail for our two large periaguas, and the other we paddled along as well as we could; but when a gale sprung up, we took her in tow.

We sailed merrily forward for several days, meeting with nothing to interrupt us. We saw several of the natives in small canoes catching fish, and sometimes we endeavoured to come near enough to speak with them, but they were always shy and afraid of us, making in for the shore as soon as we attempted it; till one of our company remembered the signal of friendship which the natives made us from the south part of the island, viz., of setting up a long pole, and put us in mind that perhaps it was the same thing to them as a flag of truce to us. So we resolved to try it; and accordingly the next time we saw any of their fishing-boats at sea we put up a pole in our canoe that had no sail, and rowed towards them. As soon as they saw the pole they stayed for us, and as we came nearer paddled towards us; when they came to us they showed themselves very much pleased, and gave us some large fish, of which we did not know the names, but they were very good. It was our misfortune still that we had nothing to give them in return; but our artist, of whom I spoke before, gave them two little thin plates of silver, beaten, as I said before, out of a piece of eight; they were cut in a diamond square, longer one way than the other, and a hole punched at one of the longest corners. This they were so fond of that they made us stay till they had cast their lines and nets again, and gave us as many fish as we cared to have.

All this while we had our eyes upon their boats, viewed them very narrowly, and examined whether any of them were fit for our turn, but they were poor, sorry things; their sail was made of a large mat, only one that was of a piece of cotton stuff fit for little, and their ropes were twisted flags of no strength; so we concluded we were better as we were, and let them alone. We went forward to the north, keeping the coast close on board for twelve days together, and having the wind at east and E.S.E., we made very fresh way. We saw no towns on the shore, but often saw some huts by the water-side upon the rocks, and always abundance of people about them, who we could perceive run together to stare at us.

It was as odd a voyage as ever man went; we were a little fleet of three ships, and an army of between twenty and thirty as dangerous fellows as ever they had amongst them; and had they known what we were, they would have compounded to give us everything we desired to be rid of us.

On the other hand, we were as miserable as nature could well make us to be, for we were upon a voyage and no voyage, we were bound somewhere and nowhere; for though we knew what we intended to do, we did really not know what we were doing. We went forward and forward by a northerly course, and as we advanced the heat increased, which began to be intolerable to us, who were on the water, without any covering from heat or wet; besides, we were now in the month of October, or thereabouts, in a southern latitude; and as we went every day nearer the sun, the sun came also every day nearer to us, till at last we found ourselves in the latitude of 20 degrees; and having passed the tropic about five or six days before that, in a few days more the sun would be in the zenith, just over our heads.

Upon these considerations we resolved to seek for a good place to go on shore again, and pitch our tents, till the heat of the weather abated. We had by this time measured half the length of the island, and were come to that part where the shore tending away to the north-west, promised fair to make our passage over to the mainland of Africa much shorter than we expected. But, notwithstanding that, we had good reason to believe it was about 120 leagues.

So, the heats considered, we resolved to take harbour; besides, our provisions were exhausted, and we had not many days' store left. Accordingly, putting in for the shore early in the morning, as we usually did once in three or four days for fresh water, we sat down and considered whether we would go on or take up our standing there; but upon several considerations, too long to repeat here, we did not like the place, so we resolved to go on a few days longer.

After sailing on N.W. by N. with a fresh gale at S.E., about six days, we found, at a great distance, a large promontory or cape of land, pushing out a long way into the sea, and as we were exceeding fond of seeing what was beyond the cape, we resolved to double it before we took into harbour, so we kept on our way, the gale continuing, and yet it was four days more before we reached the cape. But it is not possible to express the discouragement and melancholy that seized us all when we came thither; for when we made the headland of the cape, we were surprised to see the shore fall away on the other side as much as it had advanced on this side, and a great deal more; and that, in short, if we would venture over to the shore of Africa, it must be from hence, for that if we went further, the breadth of the sea still increased, and to what breadth it might increase we knew not.

While we mused upon this discovery, we were surprised with very bad weather, and especially violent rains, with thunder and lightning, most unusually terrible to us. In this pickle we run for the shore, and getting under the lee of the cape, run our frigates into a little creek, where we saw the land overgrown with trees, and made all the haste possible to get on shore, being exceeding wet, and fatigued with the heat, the thunder, lightning, and rain.

Here we thought our case was very deplorable indeed, and therefore our artist, of whom I have spoken so often, set up a great cross of wood on the hill which was within a mile of the headland, with these words, but in the Portuguese language: —

"Point Desperation. Jesus have mercy."

We set to work immediately to build us some huts, and to get our clothes dried; and though I was young and had no skill in such things, yet I shall never forget the little city we built, for it was no less, and we fortified it accordingly; and the idea is so fresh in my thought, that I cannot but give a short description of it.

Our camp was on the south side of a little creek on the sea, and under the shelter of a steep hill, which lay, though on the other side of the creek, yet within a quarter of a mile of us, N.W. by N., and very happily intercepted the heat of the sun all the after part of the day. The spot we pitched on had a little fresh water brook, or a stream running into the creek by us; and we saw cattle feeding in the plains and low ground east and to the south of us a great way.

Here we set up twelve little huts like soldiers' tents, but made of the boughs of trees stuck in the ground, and bound together on the top with withies, and such other things as we could get; the creek was our defence on the north, a little brook on the west, and the south and east sides were fortified with a bank, which entirely covered our huts; and being drawn oblique from the north-west to the south-east, made our city a triangle. Behind the bank or line our huts stood, having three other huts behind them at a good distance. In one of these, which was a little one, and stood further off, we put our gunpowder, and nothing else, for fear of danger; in the other, which was bigger, we dressed our victuals, and put all our necessaries; and in the third, which was biggest of all, we ate our dinners, called our councils, and sat and diverted ourselves with such conversation as we had one with another, which was but indifferent truly at that time.

Our correspondence with the natives was absolutely necessary, and our artist the cutler having made abundance of those little diamond-cut squares of silver, with these we made shift to traffic with the black people for what we wanted; for indeed they were pleased wonderfully with them, and thus we got plenty of provisions. At first, and in particular, we got about fifty head of black cattle and goats, and our cook's mate took care to cure them and dry them, salt and preserve them for our grand supply; nor was this hard to do, the salt and saltpetre being very good, and the sun excessively hot; and here we lived about four months.

The southern solstice was over, and the sun gone back towards the equinoctial, when we considered of our next adventure, which was to go over the sea of Zanguebar, as the Portuguese call it, and to land, if possible, upon the continent of Africa.

We talked with many of the natives about it, such as we could make ourselves intelligible to, but all that we could learn from them was, that there was a great land of lions beyond the sea, but that it was a great way off. We knew as well as they that it was a long way, but our people differed mightily about it; some said it was 150 leagues, others not above 100. One of our men, that had a map of the world, showed us by his scale that it was not above eighty leagues. Some said there were islands all the way to touch at, some that there were no islands at all. For my own part, I knew nothing of this matter one way or another, but heard it all without concern, whether it was near or far off; however, this we learned from an old man who was blind and led about by a boy, that if we stayed till the end of August, we should be sure of the wind to be fair and the sea smooth all the voyage.

This was some encouragement; but staying again was very unwelcome news to us, because that then the sun would be returning again to the south, which was what our men were very unwilling to. At last we called a council of our whole body; their debates were too tedious to take notice of, only to note, that when it came to Captain Bob (for so they called me ever since I had taken state upon me before one of their great princes), truly I was on no side; it was not one farthing matter to me, I told them, whether we went or stayed; I had no home, and all the world was alike to me; so I left it entirely to them to determine.

In a word, they saw plainly there was nothing to be done where we were without shipping; that if our business indeed was only to eat and drink, we could not find a better place in the world; but if our business was to get away, and get home into our country, we could not find a worse.

I confess I liked the country wonderfully, and even then had strange notions of coming again to live there; and I used to say to them very often that if I had but a ship of twenty guns, and a sloop, and both well manned, I would not desire a better place in the world to make myself as rich as a king.

But to return to the consultations they were in about going. Upon the whole, it was resolved to venture over for the main; and venture we did, madly enough, indeed, for it was the wrong time of the year to undertake such a voyage in that country; for, as the winds hang easterly all the months from September to March, so they generally hang westerly all the rest of the year, and blew right in our teeth; so that, as soon as we had, with a kind of a land-breeze, stretched over about fifteen or twenty leagues, and, as I may say, just enough to lose ourselves, we found the wind set in a steady fresh gale or breeze from the sea, at west, W.S.W., or S.W. by W., and never further from the west; so that, in a word, we could make nothing of it.

On the other hand, the vessel, such as we had, would not lie close upon a wind; if so, we might have stretched away N.N.W., and have met with a great many islands in our way, as we found afterwards; but we could make nothing of it, though we tried, and by the trying had almost undone us all; for, stretching away to the north, as near the wind as we could, we had forgotten the shape and position of the island of Madagascar itself; how that we came off at the head of a promontory or point of land, that lies about the middle of the island, and that stretches out west a great way into the sea; and that now, being run a matter of forty leagues to the north, the shore of the island fell off again above 200 miles to the east, so that we were by this time in the wide ocean, between the island and the main, and almost 100 leagues from both.

Indeed, as the winds blew fresh at west, as before, we had a smooth sea, and we found it pretty good going before it, and so, taking our smallest canoe in tow, we stood in for the shore with all the sail we could make. This was a terrible adventure, for, if the least gust of wind had come, we had been all lost, our canoes being deep and in no condition to make way in a high sea.

This voyage, however, held us eleven days in all; and at length, having spent most of our provisions, and every drop of water we had, we spied land, to our great joy, though at the distance of ten or eleven leagues; and as, under the land, the wind came off like a land-breeze, and blew hard against us, we were two days more before we reached the shore, having all that while excessive hot weather, and not a drop of water or any other liquor, except some cordial waters, which one of our company had a little of left in a case of bottles.

This gave us a taste of what we should have done if we had ventured forward with a scant wind and uncertain weather, and gave us a surfeit of our design for the main, at least until we might have some better vessels under us; so we went on shore again, and pitched our camp as before, in as convenient manner as we could, fortifying ourselves against any surprise; but the natives here were exceeding courteous, and much more civil than on the south part of the island; and though we could not understand what they said, or they us, yet we found means to make them understand that we were seafaring men and strangers, and that we were in distress for want of provisions.

The first proof we had of their kindness was, that as soon as they saw us come on shore and begin to make our habitation, one of their captains or kings, for we knew not what to call them, came down with five or six men and some women, and brought us five goats and two young fat steers, and gave them to us for nothing; and when we went to offer them anything, the captain or the king would not let any of them touch it, or take anything of us. About two hours after came another king, or captain, with forty or fifty men after him. We began to be afraid of him, and laid hands upon our weapons; but he perceiving it, caused two men to go before him, carrying two long poles in their hands, which they held upright, as high as they could, which we presently perceived was a signal of peace; and these two poles they set up afterwards, sticking them up in the ground; and when the king and his men came to these two poles, they struck all their lances up in the ground, and came on unarmed, leaving their lances, as also their bows and arrows, behind them.

This was to satisfy us that they were come as friends, and we were glad to see it, for we had no mind to quarrel with them if we could help it. The captain of this gang seeing some of our men making up their huts, and that they did it but bunglingly, he beckoned to some of his men to go and help us. Immediately fifteen or sixteen of them came and mingled among us, and went to work for us; and indeed, they were better workmen than we were, for they run up three or four huts for us in a moment, and much handsomer done than ours.

After this they sent us milk, plantains, pumpkins, and abundance of roots and greens that were very good, and then took their leave, and would not take anything from us that we had. One of our men offered the king or captain of these men a dram, which he drank and was mightily pleased with it, and held out his hand for another, which we gave him; and in a word, after this, he hardly failed coming to us two or three times a week, always bringing us something or other; and one time sent us seven head of black cattle, some of which we cured and dried as before.

And here I cannot but remember one thing, which afterwards stood us in great stead, viz., that the flesh of their goats, and their beef also, but especially the former, when we had dried and cured it, looked red, and ate hard and firm, as dried beef in Holland; they were so pleased with it, and it was such a dainty to them, that at any time after they would trade with us for it, not knowing, or so much as imagining what it was; so that for ten or twelve pounds' weight of smoke-dried beef, they would give us a whole bullock, or cow, or anything else we could desire.

Here we observed two things that were very material to us, even essentially so; first, we found they had a great deal of earthenware here, which they made use of many ways as we did; particularly they had long, deep earthen pots, which they used to sink into the ground, to keep the water which they drunk cool and pleasant; and the other was, that they had larger canoes than their neighbours had.

By this we were prompted to inquire if they had no larger vessels than those we saw there, or if any other of the inhabitants had not such. They signified presently that they had no larger boats than that they showed us; but that on the other side of the island they had larger boats, and that with decks upon them, and large sails; and this made us resolve to coast round the whole island to see them; so we prepared and victualled our canoe for the voyage, and, in a word, went to sea for the third time.

It cost us a month or six weeks' time to perform this voyage, in which time we went on shore several times for water and provisions, and found the natives always very free and courteous; but we were surprised one morning early, being at the extremity of the northernmost part of the island, when one of our men cried out, "A sail! a sail!" We presently saw a vessel a great way out at sea; but after we had looked at it with our perspective glasses, and endeavoured all we could to make out what it was, we could not tell what to think of it; for it was neither ship, ketch, galley, galliot, or like anything that we had ever seen before; all that we could make of it was, that it went from us, standing out to sea. In a word, we soon lost sight of it, for we were in no condition to chase anything, and we never saw it again; but, by all that we could perceive of it, from what we saw of such things afterwards, it was some Arabian vessel, which had been trading to the coast of Mozambique, or Zanzibar, the same place where we afterwards went, as you shall hear.

I kept no journal of this voyage, nor indeed did I all this while understand anything of navigation, more than the common business of a foremast-man; so I can say nothing to the latitudes or distances of any places we were at, how long we were going, or how far we sailed in a day; but this I remember, that being now come round the island, we sailed up the eastern shore due south, as we had done down the western shore due north before.