return; and therefore our officer caused his reserve to be brought out;
and first he gave his majesty a dozen of very handsome drinking-glasses
of several sizes; with half a dozen of glass beakers, or cups, to the
queen, for the same use. Then he gave the king a little hanger, and a
belt to wear it by his side; and showed him how to buckle it on and take
it off, and how to draw it out, and put it in again.
This was such a present, and the king was so delighted with it, that
our officer said he believed the king did nothing but draw it and put it
up again, put it on and pull it off, for near two hours together.
Besides this he gave the king three hatchets, and showed him the uses of
them; also two large hammers, and a pair of very strong large shears,
particularly showing him, that with those hammers they might beat out
the gold lumps which they found in the rivers, and with the shears might
cut the edges round, or into what shape they pleased, when they were
beaten thin.
To the queen he gave six little knives, and a dozen small
looking-glasses for her ladies; six pairs of scissors, and a small box
full of large needles; then he gave her some coarse brown thread, and
showed her how to thread the needle, and sew anything together with the
thread; all which she admired exceedingly, and called her tawny maids of
honour about her, that they might learn also. And whilst they were
standing all together, our officer, to divert the king, sewed two of her
women one to another by the lap of their waistcoats, or what else it
might be called; and when they were a little surprised at it, and began,
as he thought, to be a little uneasy, he took the scissors, and at one
snap set them at liberty again, which passed for such an extraordinary
piece of dexterity, that the king would needs have two of them sewed
together again, on purpose to see it cut again. And then the king
desired he might have a needle and thread himself, and a pair of
scissors; then he would sew some things together, and cut them asunder
again several times, and laugh most heartily at the ingenuity of it.
Besides the above things, they gave her majesty a pair of ear-rings to
hang on her ears, the glass in them looking green like an emerald; a
ring of silver, with false stones in it, like a rose diamond ring, the
middle stone red like a ruby, which she went presently and gave to the
king; but our officer made signs that he had one that was bigger for the
king, and accordingly gave the king one much larger; and now they had
done giving presents, as they thought, when the king made a sign to the
queen, which she understood, and, calling one of her women, she brought
a small parcel, which the queen gave our officer into his hand, wherein
was about eleven pounds weight of gold-dust, but, as before, no lumps in
it.
Our men having thus finished their traffick, and being about to come
away, they made signs to the king, that they would come again and bring
him more fine things; at which the king smiled, and pointing to the
gold, as if telling them he would have more of that for them when they
came again.
Our men had now their expectations fully answered; and, as I said, had
ended their traffick; and, taking leave of the king and all his retinue,
retired to their shallop, the king and queen going away to their city as
above. The wind blowing northerly, they were seven days before they got
down to us in the ship; during which time they had almost famished the
deer they had left, five of which they had kept to bring us alive, and
yet they went two or three times on shore to get food for them by the
way.
We were all glad to see them again, and I had a great deal of reason to
be very well satisfied with the account of their traffick, though not
much with their discovery, for they were not able to give us the least
account whether the land was a continent or an island.
But let that be how it will, it is certainly a country yet unfrequented
by any of the Christian part of mankind, and perhaps, may ever be so,
and yet may be as rich as any other part of the world yet discovered.
The mountains in most of the islands, as well as of the mainland in
those parts, abounding in gold or silver, and, no question, as well
worth searching after as the coast of Guinea; where, though the quantity
they find is considerable, yet it is at this time sought after by so
many, and the negroes taught so well how to value it, that but a little
is brought away at a time, and so much given for it, that, computing the
charge of the voyage, is oftentimes more than it is worth.
But though it is true that what gold is found here is a great way off,
yet, I am persuaded such quantities are to be had, and the price given
for it so very trifling, that it would be well worth searching for.
I reckon, that, including the gold our shallop brought, and what we got
on shore where we lay, we brought away about twenty-four pounds weight
of gold; the expense of which we could not value at above ten or eleven
pounds in England, put it all together; and reckoning for all the
provisions we got there, which supplied us for twenty days after we came
away.
For while our shallop was making her visit thus to the royal family,
&c., as is related, our men were not idle on shore, but, partly by trade
with the natives, and by washing the sands in the small rivers, we got
such a quantity of gold as well satisfied us for the stay we made.
We had been about eighteen days here when our shallop returned, and we
stayed a week more trafficking with the people; and I am persuaded, if
we had been in the mind to have settled there and stayed till now, we
should have been very welcome to the people. We saw neither horse or
cow, mule, ass, dog, or cat, or any of our European animals, excepting
that our men shot some wild ducks and widgeons, exactly the same which
we see in England, and very fat and good, but much easier to shoot than
in England, having never been acquainted with the flash and noise of
guns as ours have been; we also found a sort of partridges in the
country not much unlike our own, and a great many of the whistling
plover, the same with ours.
Though this month's stay was unexpected, yet we had no reason to think
our time ill spent. However, we did not think we ought to lie here too
long whatever we got; so we weighed and stood off to sea, steering still
south-east, keeping the shore of this golden country in sight, till our
men told us they found the land fall off to the south. Then we steered
away more southerly for six or eight days, not losing sight of, land all
the time, till by an observation we found we were in the latitude of 34 deg.
30' south of the line, our meridian distance from the Ladrones 22 deg. 30'
east, when a fresh gale of wind springing up at south and by east,
obliged us to haul close for that evening. At night it blew such a storm
that we were obliged to yield to the force of it, and go away afore it
to the north, or north-by-west, till we came to the point of that land
we passed before. Here, the land tending to the west, we ran in under
the lee of a steep shore, and came to an anchor in twenty-five fathoms
water, being the same country we were in before. Here we rode very safe
for five days, the wind continuing to blow very hard all the time from
the south-east.
My men would fain have had me gone ashore again and trafficked with the
people for more gold; but I, who was still in quest of further
discoveries, thought I knew enough of this place to tempt my friend the
merchant, whose favourite design was that of making new discoveries, to
another voyage there, and that was enough for me. So I declined going
on shore again, except that we sent our boats for a recruit of fresh
water; and our men, while they were filling it, shot a brace of deer, as
they were feeding by the side of a swamp or moist ground, and also some
wild ducks. Here we set up a great wooden cross, and wrote on it the
names of our ships and commanders, and the time that we came to an
anchor there.
But we were obliged to a farther discovery of this country than we
intended, by the following accident. We had unmoored early in the
morning, and by eight o'clock were under sail; by ten we had doubled the
point I mentioned above, and stood away south keeping the shore on
board, at the distance of about two leagues west.
The next day, the officer who had been with the shallop, showed us the
opening or mouth where he had put in, and where he had made his traffick
with the king of the country, as said before.
We went on still for two days, and still we found the land extending
itself south, till the third day in the morning, when we were a little
surprised to find ourselves, as it were, embayed, being in the bottom of
a deep gulf, and the land appearing right ahead, distance about three
leagues; the coast having turned away to the east and by south, very
high land and mountainous, and the tops of some of the hills covered
with snow.
Our second mate and the boatswain, upon this discovery, were for coming
about, and sent to me for orders to make signals to the other ship and
our brigantine, who were both ahead, to do the like; but I, who was
willing to acquaint myself as fully as I could with the coast of the
country, which I made no question I should have occasion to come to
again, said, No, no, I will see a little farther first. So I ran on,
having an easy gale at north-east and good weather, till I came within
about a league and a half of the shore, when I found, that in the very
bite or nook of the bay, there was a great inlet of water, which either
must be a passage or strait between the land we had been on shore upon;
which, in that case, must be a great island, or that it must be the
mouth of some extraordinary great river.
This was a discovery too great to be omitted, so I ordered the
brigantine to stand in with an easy sail, and see what account could be
had of the place; accordingly they stood in, and we followed about a
league, and then lay by, waiting their signals. I had particularly
ordered them to keep two boats ahead to sound the depth all the way, and
they did so; and how it happened we knew not, but on a sudden we heard
the sloop fire two guns first, and then one gun; the first was a signal
to us to bring to, and come no farther: the next was a signal of
distress. We immediately tacked to stand off, but found a strong current
setting directly into the bite, and there not being wind enough for us
to stem the current, we let go our anchors in twenty fathoms water.
Immediately we manned out all the boats we had, great and small, to go
and assist our brigantine, not knowing what distress she might be in;
and they found that she had driven up, as we were like to have done, too
far into the channel of a large river, the mouth of which, being very
broad, had several shoals in it: and though she had dropped her anchor
just upon notice, which the boats who were sounding gave her, yet she
tailed aground upon a sand-bank, and stuck fast; our men made no doubt
but she would be lost, and began to think of saving the provisions and
ammunition out of her. The two long boats accordingly began to lighten
her; and first they took in her guns, and let out all her casks of
water: then they began to take in her great shot and the heavy goods.
But by this time they found their mistake, for the current, which I
mentioned, was nothing but a strong tide of flood, which, the indraught
of the river being considerable, ran up with a very great force, and in
something less than an hour the brigantine floated again.
However, she had stuck so long upon the sand, and the force of the
current or tide had been so great, that she received considerable
damage; and had a great deal of water in her hold. I immediately ordered
out boats to row to the land, on both sides, to see if they could find a
good place to lay her on shore in; they obeyed the order, and found a
very convenient harbour in the mouth of a small river, which emptied
itself into the great river about two leagues within the foreland of it,
on the north side, as the river Medway runs into the Thames, within the
mouth of it, on the south, side, only this was not so far up.
Here they ran in the sloop immediately, and the next day we came thither
also; our boats having sounded the whole breadth, of the main river,
and found a very good channel, half a league broad, having from
seventeen to four-and-twenty fathoms water all the way, and very good
riding.
Here we found it absolutely necessary to take everything out of the
brigantine to search her bottom, for her lying on shore had strained her
seams, and broke one of her floor timbers; and having hands enough, our
men unloaded her in a very little time, and making a little dock for
her, mended all the damage in about ten days' time. But seeing her in so
good a condition, and the place so convenient, I resolved to have her
whole bottom new calked and cleaned, that we made her as tight as she
was when she first came off the stocks.
This I took for a good opportunity to careen and clean our other ships
too; for we had done little to them since we came from Madagascar. We
found our Madagascar ship much worm-eaten in her sheathing, which we
helped as well as we could by new nailing and by taking out some pieces
of her sheathing, and putting new ones in. But as to our great ship, she
was sheathed with lead, and had received no damage at all; only that she
was very foul, which we remedied by scraping and cleaning, and new
graving her quite over.
We were not all employed in this work, and therefore we had leisure to
make the best of our time for the main work of new discoveries. And now
I resolved to leave it no more to under officers, as I had done before,
viz., when I gave the command of the shallop that traded with the king
and queen, as above, to a midshipman, which I was very sorry for, though
the fellow did his business very well too; but, I say, I resolved not to
trust any one now but myself.
In the first place, I took the two shallops and went across the mouth of
the great river to the south shore, to see what kind of a country was to
be found there. For, as to the north side, where we were, we found it to
be much the same with that part where we had been before; with this
difference only, whereas, in the other place gold was to be had in
plenty, but here was none we could find; nor did we perceive that the
people had any.
I found the mouth of this river, or inlet, to be about four leagues over
where I crossed it, which was about three leagues and a half within the
inlet itself. But the weather being very calm, and the flood-tide
running sharp, we let our boat drive up, in our crossing, about two
leagues more; and we found the channel grew narrow so fast, that, where
we came to land, it was not full a league over; that about three leagues
farther we found it a mere river, not above as broad as the Thames at
Blackwall.
We found it a steep shore, and, observing a little creek very convenient
for our purpose, we ran in our boats among some flags or rushes, and
laid them as soft and as safe as if they had been in a dock; we went all
on shore immediately, except two men in each boat left to guard our
provisions.
We had for arms, every man a musket, a pistol, and a cutlass; and in
each boat we had six half pikes, to use as we might have occasion. We
had also every man a hatchet, hung in a little frog at his belt; and in
each boat a broad axe and a saw.
We were furnished with strings of beads, bits of glass, glass rings,
ear-rings, pearl necklaces, and suchlike jewellery ware innumerable;
besides knives, scissors, needles, pins, looking-glasses,
drinking-glasses, and toys in great plenty.
We were no sooner on shore but we found people in abundance; for there
were two or three, small towns within a little way of the shore; and I
suppose we might have the more people about us, because, as we
understood afterwards, they had seen us before, though we had not seen
them.
We made signs to them, by putting our fingers to our mouths, and moving
our chaps as if we were eating, that we wanted provisions; and we hung
up a white flag for a truce. They presently understood the first signal,
but knew nothing of the last; and as to provisions, just as had been the
case before, they brought us out roots and fruits, such as they ate
themselves, but such as we had never seen before. Some of them, however,
were very sweet and good, and when we boiled them they tasted much like
an English parsnip; and we gave them strings of beads, pieces of glass,
and such things as we remarked they were fond of.
We found the people, as I observed of the other, very inoffensive and
sincere; not quarrelsome, nor treacherous, nor mischievous in the least.
And we took care not so much as to let them know the use or manner of
our fire-arms for a great while; neither was there one piece fired all
the time we were among the other people, where we had so much gold. If
there had, it had been very probable that they would have fled the
country, in spite of all the good usage we could have been able to have
shown them.
The people where we were now were not so rich in gold as those where we
were before, but we found them much better stored with provisions; for
besides deer, of which they had great plenty and variety, for they had
some of a sort which I had never seen before, and besides an infinite
number of those rabbits I have mentioned, which were as big as our
hares, and which do not burrow in the ground as our rabbits do, they had
also a kind of sheep, large, (like those of Peru, where they are used to
carry burdens), and very good. They have no wool nor horns, but are
rather hairy like a goat; nor should I call them sheep, but that their
flesh eats like mutton, and I knew not what else to call them. The
natives called them huttash; but what breed, or from what part of the
world, or whether peculiar to this division alone, I know not.
However, their flesh was very agreeable, and they were fat and good; and
as the Indians were mightily pleased with the price we paid them, and
the goods we paid them in, they brought us more of these huttashes than
we knew what to do with; and as I can calculate the rate, I suppose we
might have them for about eight-pence, or sometimes not above sixpence
cost each; for they would give us one very thankfully for a string or
two of small beads, and think themselves mighty well paid.
I found them so plentiful, and so easy to come at, that in short I sent
fifty of them alive, tied neck and heels, in one of the shallops back to
our ships, and ordered them to send their long-boats over for more; for
though it was so little a way over, we did not find they had any of them
on that side the river.
We did the Indians another piece of service, for, if they gave us meat,
we taught them to be cooks, for we showed them how to roast it upon a
stick or spit before the fire; whereas they ate all their meat before,
either stewed in earthen pots over the fire, with herbs, such as we did
not understand, or thrown on burning fuel of green wood, which always
made it taste and stink of the smoke most intolerably.
We had a great deal of opportunity now to converse with the people on
both sides the river; and we found them to be not only different
nations, but of different speech and different customs. These on the
south side, where I now was, seemed to be the best furnished with
provisions, and to live in the greatest plenty. But those on the north
side appeared better clothed, and a more civilized sort of people; and
of the two, seemed to have in their countenances something more
agreeable.
However, as they were near neighbours, for the river only parted them,
they were not very much unlike each other. That which seemed most
strange to me was, that we found they had little knowledge or
communication one with another. They had indeed some boats in the river,
but they were very small, and rather served to just waft them over, or
to fish in them, than for any other use; for we found none that could
carry above four men, and those very oddly made, partly as a canoe, by
hollowing a tree, and partly by skins of beasts, dried and stuck on in
such a manner that they would paddle along at a great rate with them.
For want of understanding their language I could come at no knowledge of
their religion or worship; nor did I see any idols among them, or any
adoration paid to the sun or moon. But yet, as a confirmation that all
nations, however barbarous, have some notion of a God, and some awe of a
superior power, I observed here, that, in making a bargain with one of
the principal men, (such I perceived him to be by the respect the rest
showed him), I say, being making a bargain with him, as well as could be
done between two people who understood not one word of what either said,
he had made signs to bring me twelve sheep the next morning, for some
things that I was to deliver him of mine. I am sure the goods were not
all of them of value sufficient to give me the least distrust; but when
I gave him the goods without the sheep, being, as I said, to trust him
till the next day, he called two men to him, and pointing to the goods
that I had put into his hands, he tells upon his fingers twelve, letting
them know, as I supposed, that he was to give me twelve sheep the next
day in return, and so far it appeared they were to be witnesses of the
agreement. He then placed his two hands, one upon each breast, with the
fingers turned up towards his face, and holding them thus he looked
towards heaven, with his face turned upward also, and with the utmost
gravity, seriousness, and solemnity in his countenance that ever I saw
in any man's face in my life, he moved his lips in the action of
speaking. When he had continued in this posture about a quarter of a
minute, he took the two men, and put them in the same attitude, and then
pointed to me, and next to himself; by which I understood, first, that
he solemnly swore to me that he would bring the sheep punctually and
faithfully to me, and then brought the two men to be bail or security
for the performance; that is to say, to oblige themselves to perform it
if he did not.
Doubtless those people who have any notion of a God must represent him
to themselves as something superior, and something that sees, and hears,
and knows what they say or do. Whether these people meant the sun, or
the moon, or the stars, or other visible object, or whatever else, I do
not pretend to determine, but it is certain they understood it to be
something to swear by; something that could bear witness of their
engagement, and that being called to witness it would resent their
breach of promise if they made it. As to those whose gods are monsters,
and hideous shapes, frightful images, and terrible figures, the motive
of their adoration being that of mere terror, they have certainly gross
ideas; but these people seem to act upon a more solid foundation, paying
their reverence in a manner much more rational, and to something which
it was much more reasonable to worship, as appeared in the solemnity of
their countenances, and their behaviour in making a solemn promise.
We found those people clothed, generally speaking, over their whole
bodies, their heads, arms, legs and feet excepted, but not so agreeably
as those we mentioned above; and we found that the clothing of these
were generally made of the skins of beasts, but very artfully put
together, so that though they had neither needle nor thread, yet they
had the same plant as I mentioned before, the stalk of which would so
strongly tie like a thread, that they peeled it off thicker or finer as
they had occasion, and made use of it abundance of ways to tie and
twist, and make their clothes with it, as well for their occasion as if
it had been woven in a loom.
We found several of these people had little bits of gold about them; but
when we made signs to them to know where they got it, and where it might
be had, they made signs to us, pointing to the country on the north side
of the river; so that we had, it seems, fallen upon the right gold
coast in our first coming. They pointed indeed likewise to some very
high mountains, which we saw at a great distance south-west, so that it
seems as if there was gold found that way also; but it appeared the
people here had not much of it for their share.
The men here had bows and arrows, and they used them so dexterously,
that a wild goose flying over our heads, one of the Indians shot it
quite through with an arrow. One of our men was so provoked to see them,
as it were, to outdo him, that, some time after, seeing a couple of
ducks flying fair for a mark, he presented his piece, and shot them both
flying.