A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 13Kerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 13
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
Indian village, consisting of small temporary sheds, where we landed,
and were received by the people with the utmost kindness and
hospitality: They treated us with a flat shell-fish of a most delicious
taste, somewhat like a cockle, which we eat hot from the coals. Near
this place is a high point or peninsula, projecting into the river, and
upon it are the remains of a fort, which they call _eppah_, or _heppah_.
The best engineer in Europe could not have chosen a situation better
adapted to enable a small number to defend themselves against a greater.
The steepness of the cliffs renders it wholly inaccessible from the
water which incloses it on three sides; and, to the land, it is
fortified by a ditch, and a bank raised on the inside: From the top of
the bank to the bottom of the ditch, is two-and-twenty feet; the ditch
on the outside is fourteen feet deep, and its breadth is in proportion.
The whole seemed to have been executed with great judgment; and there
had been a row of pickets or pallisadoes, both on the top of the bank
and along the brink of the ditch on the outside; those on the outside
had been driven very deep into the ground, and were inclined towards the
ditch, so as to project over it; but of these the thickest posts only
were left, and upon them there were evident marks of fire, so that the
place had probably been taken and destroyed by an enemy. If any occasion
should make it necessary for a ship to winter here, or stay any time,
tents might be built in this place, which is sufficiently spacious, with
great convenience, and might easily be made impregnable to the whole
country.
On the 11th, there was so much wind and rain that no canoe came off; but
the long-boat was sent to fetch oysters from one of the beds which had
been discovered the day before: The boat soon returned, deeply laden,
and the oysters, which were as good as ever came from Colchester, and
about the same size, were laid down under the booms, and the ship's
company did nothing but eat them from the time they came on board till
night, when, as may reasonably be supposed, great part of them were
expended; this, however, gave us no concern, as we knew that not the
boat only, but the ship, might have been loaded, almost in one tide, as
the beds are dry at half-ebb.
In the morning of Sunday the 12th, two canoes came off full of people
whom we had never seen before, but who appeared to have heard of us, by
the caution which they used in approaching us. As we invited them to
come alongside with all the tokens of friendship that we could shew,
they ventured up, and two of them came on board; the rest traded very
fairly for what they had: A small canoe also came from the other side of
the bay, and sold us some very large fish, which they gave us to
understand they would have brought yesterday, having caught them the day
before, but that the wind was so high they could not venture to sea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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