Page 42 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

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42 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST

dicl the vessels drop anchor in this veritable harbour of
i • refuge. As the ships had progressed on the voyage the

scurvy had tightened its terrible grip on the unfortunate
I; : crews. On the Hector, the Susan and the Ascension, the
conditions were such that there were not enough men to do
the routine duties of the ships, and Lancaster had to send
his own men on board to furl the sails. The Red Dragon
had enjoyed a practical immunity from sickness, for the
simple reason that Lancaster had taken a supply of lemon
water on board and had served it out regularly to his men.
He must have understood its qualities as an anti-scorbutic,
but the full value of the fruit can hardly have been realized,
for the melancholy tale of disease continued long years
after this period.
It was often at or near the Cape that the fell malady
reached its highest point of destructive energy. Out of
that circumstance probably grew the grisly tradition of
the Carlmilhan, the phantom ship which in the watches
of the night appeared with its ghastly crew lying prone in
agonized attitudes about its decks or hanging in the awful
realism of death over the bulwarks to carry terror into the
minds of the superstitious seamen. The history of the sea at
this period has, at all events, a number of well accredited
• ii
cases in which an entire crew perished, and the vessel,
deprived of intelligent direction, was carried aimlessly
about until some day the pitiful truth was revealed to a
I ' passing ship which had put off to ascertain the character
I;
of the derelict. Not without cause, indeed, was the great
African promontory given in the first instance the designa­
tion Cape of Torments. The horrors of one of the most
painful of diseases were there associated witli Nature’s
elemental manifestations in their most terrifying aspect,

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