A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 12: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the; Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea; and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present TimeKerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 12: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the; Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea; and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
At five in the evening, the boats returned with only two barecas of
water, which the natives had filled for them; and as a compensation for
their trouble, they thought fit to detain all the rest. Our people, who
did not leave their boat, tried every expedient they could think of to
induce the Indians to return their water-vessels, but without success;
and the Indians, in their turn, were very pressing for our people to
come on shore, which they thought it prudent to decline. There were many
thousands of the inhabitants of both sexes, and a great number of
children on the beach, when our boats came away.
The next morning, I sent the boats on shore again for water, with nails,
hatchets, and such other things as I thought most likely to gain the
friendship of the inhabitants. In the mean time, a great number of
canoes came off to the ship, with bread-fruit, plantains, a fruit
resembling an apple, only better, fowls, and hogs, which we purchased
with beads, nails, knives, and other articles of the like kind, so that
we procured pork enough to serve the ship's company two days, at a pound
a man.
When the boats returned, they brought us only a few calibashes of water,
for the number of people on the beach was so great, that they would not
venture to land, though the young women repeated the allurements which
they had practised the day before, with still more wanton, and, if
possible, less equivocal gestures. Fruit and provisions of various kinds
were brought down and ranged upon the beach, of which our people were
also invited to partake, as an additional inducement for them to leave
the boat. They continued, however, inexorable, and shewing the Indian's
the barecas on board, made signs that they should bring down those which
had been detained the day before: To this the Indians were inexorable in
their turn, and our people therefore weighed their grapplings, and
sounded all round the place, to see whether the ship could come in near
enough to cover the waterers, in which case they might venture on shore,
in defiance of the whole island. When they put off, the women pelted
them with apples and bananas, shouting, and shewing every mark of
derision and contempt that they could devise. They reported, that the
ship might ride in four fathom water, with sandy ground, at two cables'
length from the shore, and in five fathom water at three cables' length.
The wind here blew right along the shore, raising a great surf on the
side of the vessel, and on the beach.
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