SLOW PROGRESS.
When we reached the trade wind, and it settled between the north and the
east, yet it seldom blew with so much strength but the Centurion might
have carried all her small sails abroad with the greatest safety, so that
now, had we been a single ship, we might have run down our longitude
apace, and have reached the Ladrones soon enough to have recovered great
numbers of our men who afterwards perished. But the Gloucester, by the
loss of her mainmast, sailed so very heavily that we had seldom any more
than our topsails set, and yet were frequently obliged to lie to for her,
and I conceive that in the whole we lost little less than a month by our
attendance upon her, in consequence of the various mischances she
encountered. In all this run it was remarkable that we were rarely many
days together without seeing great numbers of birds, which is a proof
that there are many islands, or at least rocks, scattered all along at no
very considerable distance from our track. Some indeed there are marked
in Spanish charts, but the frequency of the birds seems to evince that
there are many more than have been hitherto discovered, for the greatest
part of the birds, we observed, were such as are known to roost on shore,
and the manner of their appearance sufficiently made out that they came
from some distant haunt every morning, and returned thither again in the
evening, for we never saw them early or late, and the hour of their
arrival and departure gradually varied, which we supposed was occasioned
by our running nearer their haunts or getting farther from them.
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