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
away, she ordered a very large sow, big with young, to be taken down to
the boat, and accompanied us thither herself. She had given directions
to her people to carry me, as they had done when I came, but as I chose
rather to walk, she took me by the arm, and whenever we came to a plash
of water or dirt, she lifted me over with as little trouble as it would
have cost me to have lifted over a child if I had been well.
The next morning I sent her by the gunner, six hatchets, six bill-hooks,
and several other things; and when he returned, he told me, that he
found her giving an entertainment to a great number of people, which, he
supposed, could not be less than a thousand. The messes were all brought
to her by the servants that prepared them, the meat being put into the
shells of cocoa-nuts, and the shells into wooden trays, somewhat like
those used by our butchers, and she distributed them with her own hands
to the guests, who were seated in rows round the great house. When this
was done, she sat down herself, upon a place somewhat elevated above the
rest, and two women, placing themselves one on each side of her, fed
her, she opening her mouth as they brought their hands up with the food.
When she saw the gunner, she ordered a mess for him; he could not
certainly tell what it was, but he believed it to be fowl picked small,
with apples cut among it, and seasoned with salt water; it was, however,
very well tasted. She accepted the things that I sent her, and seemed to
be much pleased with them. After this correspondence was established
with the queen, provisions of every kind became much more plenty at
market; but though fowls and hogs were every day brought in, we were
still obliged to pay more for them than at the first, the market having
been spoiled by the nails which our men had stolen and given to the
women; I therefore gave orders that every man should be searched before
he went on shore, and that no woman should be suffered to cross the
river.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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