_ 28 _ to accomplish what we had planned. From that day on, it was God's will that we moved forwards and not backwards. May it please Him that it may always be so. By Christmas Day, 25 December, we had discovered seventy leagues of coast. On that day, after we had eaten, while we were putting up an auxiliary sail, we discovered a split in the mast about six feet below the crow's nest, and it kept opening and shutting. Accordingly, we strengthened it with backstays until we could put in at port where we would be able to repair it in shelter. On Thursday, we anchored near the coast where we caught a lot of fish. At sunset we got under sail again and continued on our route. We left one of our anchors behind because a hawser snapped when we were at sea. We sailed from there and were so long at sea without finding port that we no longer had water to drink (apart from brine) or food to eat. We were rationed to a quartilho [pint] of water a day, so we needed to put in to port. It was Thursday, 10 January, when we caught sight of a small river and there we anchored near the coast. The next day we went ashore in our boats, where we came across a crowd of powerfully built male and female negroes with their chief. The captain-major instructed a certain Martim
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