A New Voyage Round the World by a Course Never Sailed BeforeDefoe, Daniel
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A New Voyage Round the World by a Course Never Sailed Before
Defoe, Daniel
Adventure stories; Voyages around the world -- Fiction
However, our men not being able to go any farther against the tide, took
no notice of that; but, after a little while some of them, in one of the
smaller boats, rowed towards the shore, holding up a white flag to the
people in token of friendship; but it was all one, and would have been
all one for aught we knew, if they had held up a red flag, for they all
ran away, men, women, and children; nor could our men by any
persuasions, by gestures and signs of any kind, prevail on them to stay,
or hardly so much as to look at them.
The night coming on, our men knew not well what course to take; they saw
several of the Indians' dwellings and habitations, but they were all at
a distance from the river, occasioned, as our men supposed, by the
river's overflowing the flat grounds near its banks, so as to render
those lands not habitable.
Our men had a great inclination to have gone up to one of the towns they
saw, but he that commanded would not permit it; but told them, if they
could find a good landing-place, that they might all go on shore, except
a few to keep the boats, if they chose to venture; upon which the
smallest boat rowed up about a mile, and found a small river running
into the greater, and here they all resolved to land; but first they
fired two muskets, to give notice, if possible, to their comrades, that
they were at hand; however, they heard nothing of them.
What impression the noise of the two muskets made among the Indians they
could not tell, for they were all run away before.
They were no sooner on shore, but, considering they had not above two
hours day, and that the Indian villages were at least two miles off,
they called a council, and resolved not to march so far into a country
they knew so little of, and be left to come back in the dark; so they
went on board again, and waited till morning. However, they viewed the
country, found it was a fertile soil, and a great herbage on the ground;
there were few trees near the river; but farther up where the Indian
dwellings were, the little hills seemed to be covered with woods, but of
what kind they knew not.
In the morning, before break of day, some of our men fancied they heard
a gun fired up the river; upon which the officer ordered two muskets to
be fired again, as had been done the evening before; and in about a
quarter of an hour they were answered by the like firing, by which our
men knew that their comrades heard them; so, without pursuing their
intended landing, the tide being then running upwards, they weighed, and
set to their oars, having little or no wind, and that which they had
blowing down the stream.
After they had gone about a league, they heard a confused noise at a
great distance, which surprised them a little at first; but, as they
perceived it drew nearer and nearer, they waited awhile, when they
discovered first here and there some people, then more, and then about
two or three hundred men and women together, running, and every one
carrying something.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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