At last the
south wind, mastering all the rest, drove the ocean and the sky: the
tempest derived new force from the windy mountains and swelling rivers of
Germany, as well as from an immense train of clouds; and contracting
withal fresh vigour from the boisterous neighbourhood of the north, it
hurled the ships and tossed them into the open ocean, or against islands
shored with rocks or dangerously beset with covered shoals. The ships by
degrees, with great labour and the change of the tide, were relieved from
the rocks and sands, but remained at the mercy of the winds; their anchors
could not hold them; they were full of water, nor could all their pumps
discharge it: hence, to lighten and raise the vessels swallowing at their
decks the invading waves, the horses, beasts, baggage, and even the arms
were cast into the deep.
By how much the German ocean is more outrageous than the rest of the sea,
and the German climate excels in rigour, by so much this ruin was reckoned
to exceed in greatness and novelty. They were engaged in a tempestuous
sea, believed deep without bottom, vast without bounds, or no shores near
but hostile shores: part of the fleet were swallowed up; many were driven
upon remote islands void of human culture, where the men perished through
famine, or were kept alive by the carcasses of horses cast in by the
flood.
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