for them, although it be for a thousand or 10. thousand duckets.  For euery ioynt and euery finger hath his signification.  For if the Marchants that stande by should vnderstand the bargaine, it would breede great controuersie amongst them.  And at my being in Pegu in the moneth of August, in Anno 1569, hauing gotten well by my endeuour, I was desirous to see mine owne Countrey, and I thought it good to goe by the way of S. Tome, but then I should tary vntil March.

In which iourney I was counsailed, yea, and fully resolued to go by the way of Bengala, with a shippe there ready to depart for that voyage.  And then wee departed from Pegu to Chatigan a great harbour or port, from whence there goe smal ships to Cochin, before the fleete depart for Portugall, in which ships I was fully determined to goe to Lisbon, and so to Venice. [Sidenote:  This Touffon is an extraordinary storme at Sea.] When I had thus resolued my selfe, I went a boord of the shippe of Bengala, at which time it was the yeere of Touffon:  concerning which Touffon ye are to vnderstand, that in the East Indies often times, there are not stormes as in other countreys; but euery 10. or 12. yeeres there are such tempests and stormes, that it is a thing incredible, but to those that haue seene it, neither do they know certainly what yeere they wil come.

[Sidenote:  The Touffon commeth but euery 10. or 12. yeeres.] Vnfortunate are they that are at sea in that yere and time of the Touffon, because few there are that escape that danger.  In this yere it was our chance to be at sea with the like storme, but it happened well vnto vs, for that our ship was newly ouer-plancked, and had not any thing in her saue victuall and balasts, Siluer and golde, which from Pegu they cary to Bengala, and no other kinde of Marchandise.  This Touffon or cruel storme endured three dayes and three nights:  in which time it caried away our sailes, yards, and rudder; and because the shippe laboured in the Sea, wee cut our mast ouer boord:  which when we had done she laboured a great deale more then before, in such wise, that she was almost full with water that came ouer the highest part of her and so went downe:  and for the space of three dayes and three nights sixtie men did nothing but hale water out of her in this wise, twentie men in one place, and twentie men in another place, and twentie in a thirde place:  and for all this storme, the shippe was so good, that shee tooke not one iot of water below through her sides, but all ran downe through the hatches, so that those sixtie men did nothing but cast the Sea into the Sea.  And thus driuing too and fro as the winde and Sea would, we were in a darke night about foure of the clocke cast on a sholde:  yet when it was day, we could neither see land on one side nor other, and knew not where we were:  And as it pleased the diuine power, there came a great waue of the Sea, which draue vs beyonde the should. [Sidenote:  A manifest token of the ebbing and