Note 1 — INTRODUCTION

Dampier was the son of a Somerset farmer, but at seventeen years of age was apprenticed to a sea captain sailing from Weymouth. Deserting in the West Indies, he took to the occupation of a logwood cutter for a time, and later joined the buccaneers. He wrote several books, working at his manuscripts between battles, and keeping his notes in a joint of bamboo which, to use his own words, he “kept stopt at the ends with wax to keep out water. In this I preserved my Journal and other Writings tho’ I was often forced to swim.” His descriptions of fauna and flora, his maps, and his detailed accounts of the Indians and their customs and languages are of great scientific value, though his conclusions are often erroneous. ↑