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Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 1823-1911

"Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic"

Thus hepassed along turning his head to and fro, yawning and gaping wide, withougly demonstration of long teeth, and glaring eies, and to bidde vs afarewell (comming right against the Hinde) he sent forth a horrible voyce,roaring or bellowing as doeth a lion, which spectacle wee all beheld sofarre as we were able to discerne the same, as men prone to wonder ateuery strange thing, as this doubtlesse was, to see a lion in the Oceansea, or fish in shape of a lion. What opinion others had thereof, andchiefly the Generall himselfe, I forbeare to deliuer: But he tooke it forBonum Omen [a good omen], reioycing that he was to warre against such anenemie, if it were the deuill."When they came north of the Azores, very violent storms met them; most"outrageous seas," the narrator says; and they saw little lights upon themainyard called then by sailors "Castor and Pollux," and now "St. Elmo'sFire"; yet they had but one of these at a time, and this is thought a signof tempest. On September 9, in the afternoon, "the general," as theycalled him, Sir Humphrey, was sitting abaft with a book in his hand, andcried out more than once to those in the other vessel, "We are as near toheaven by sea as by land." And that same night about twelve o'clock, thefrigate being ahead of the _Golden Hind_, the lights of the smallervessel suddenly disappeared, and they knew that she had sunk in the sea.


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