A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 08Kerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 08
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
This place did not seem populous, as we never saw above twenty natives
at any one time. The men were comely, stout, tall, and well-made, of a
tawny colour, wearing no cloathing excepting a girdle or short apron
made of rind of trees. Their beards were black and reasonably long; and
the hair of their heads likewise black and long, plaited and frizzled
very curiously; neither had their bodies any bad smell. They carry many
trinkets fastened to their girdles, adorned with alligators teeth, some
of them being hollow, in which they carry tallow to keep their darts
bright, which are their chief weapons, and of which each man carries a
small bundle, together with a fair lance, artificially headed with iron,
and kept as bright as silver. Their darts are of a very formidable and
dangerous shape, barbed on both sides; and each man carries a dagger
like a butcher's knife, very well made. They therefore showed no regard
for iron, and would not barter their commodities for any thing but
silver, in which we paid twelve-pence for a sheep, and 3s. 6d. for a
cow. They asked beads into the bargain, for which alone they would give
nothing except a little milk, which they brought down very sweet and
good in gourds.
Their cattle have great bunches on their fore-shoulders, in size and
shape like sugar-loaves, which are of a gristly substance and excellent
eating. Their beef is not loose and flabby like that at Saldhana, but
firm and good, little differing from that of England. Their mutton also
is excellent, their sheep having tails weighing 28 pounds each, which
therefore are mostly cut off from the ewes, not to obstruct propagation.
In the woods near the river there are great numbers of monkeys of an
ash-colour with a small head, having a long tail like a fox, ringed or
barred with black and white, the fur being very fine.[212] We shot some
of these, not being able to take any of them alive. There are bats also,
as large almost in the bodies as rabbits, headed like a fox, having a
close fur, and in other respects resembling bats, having a loud shrill
cry. We killed one whose wings extended a full yard. There are plenty of
herons, white, black, blue, and divers mixed colours; with many
_bastard_ hawks, and other birds of an infinite variety of kinds and
colours, most having crests on their heads like peacocks. There are
great store of lizards and camelions also, which agree in the
description given by Pliny, only it is not true that they live on air
without other food; for having kept one on board for only a day, we
could perceive him to catch flies in a very strange manner. On
perceiving a fly sitting, he suddenly darts out something from his
mouth, perhaps his tongue, very loathsome to behold, and almost like a
bird-bolt, with which he catches and eats the flies with such speed,
even in the twinkling of an eye, that one can hardly discern the action.
In the hills there are many spiders on the trees, which spin webs from
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