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
But our other shallop had much better luck; she went away to the east,
and by the time she had gone about sixteen leagues she found the shore
break off a little, and soon after a little more, until at length they
came as it were to the land's end; when, the shore running due south,
they followed, according to their account, near thirteen leagues more.
In this interval they went several times on shore, entered three rivers,
indifferently large, and one of them very large at the mouth, but grew
narrow again in three or four leagues; but a deep channel, with
two-and-twenty to eight-and-twenty fathom water in it all the way, as
far as they went.
Here they went on shore and trafficked with the natives, whom they found
rude and unpolished, but a very mild inoffensive people; nor did they
find them anything thievish, much less treacherous, as in some countries
is the case. They had the good luck to find out the place where, as they
supposed, the king of the country resided; which was a kind of a city,
encompassed all round, the river making a kind of double horse-shoe. The
manner of their living is too long to describe; neither could our men
give any account of their government, or of the customs of the place;
but what they sought for was gold and provisions, and of those they got
pretty considerable quantities.
They found the Indians terribly surprised at the first sight of them;
but after some time they found means to let them know they desired a
truce, and to make them understand what they meant by it.
At length a truce being established, the king came, and with him near
three hundred men; and soon after the queen, with half as many women.
They were not stark naked, neither men nor women, but wearing a loose
piece of cloth about their middles; what it was made of we could not
imagine, for it was neither linen or woollen, cotton or silk; nor was it
woven, but twisted and braided by hand, as our women make bone lace with
bobbins. It seems it was the stalk of an herb, which this was made with;
and was so strong that I doubt not it would have made cables for our
ships, if we had wanted to make such an experiment.
When the king first came to our men they were a little shy of his
company, he had so many with him, and they began to retire; which the
king perceiving, he caused all his men to stop, and keep at a distance;
and advanced himself with about ten or twelve of his men, and no more.
When he was come quite up, our men, to show their breeding, pulled off
their hats, but that he did not understand, for his men had no hats on.
But the officer making a bow to him, he understood that presently, and
bowed again; at which all his men fell down flat upon their faces, as
flat to the ground as if they had been shot to death with a volley of
our shot; and they did not fall so quick but they were up again as
nimbly, and then down flat on the ground again; and this they did three
times, their king bowing himself to our men at the same time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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