Des Carles, tom. I. p. 102-3. In the year 1621, when
Des Cartes might be about twenty-six years old, he was
touring about as usual, (for he was as restless as a
hysena,) and, coming to the Elbe, either at Gluckstadt
or at Hamburgh, he took shipping for East Friezland :
what he could want in East Friezland no man has ever
discovered ; and perhaps he took this into consideration
himself; for, on reaching Embden, he resolved to sail



30 MUKDEK.
instantly for West Friezland ; and being very impatient
of delay, he hired a bark, with-a few mariners to navi-
gate it. No sooner had he got out to sea than he made
a pleasing discovery, viz., that he had shut himself up
in a den of murderefs. His crev*', says M. Baillet, he
soon found out to be ' des scelerats,' — not amateurs,
gentlemen, as vi'e are, but professional men — the height
of whose ambition at that moment was to cut his throat.
But the story is too pleasing to be abridged ; I shall
give it, therefore, accurately, from the French of his
biographer : ' M. Des Cartes had no company but that
of his servant, with whom he was conversing in French.
