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
I found the mouth of this river, or inlet, to be about four leagues over
where I crossed it, which was about three leagues and a half within the
inlet itself. But the weather being very calm, and the flood-tide
running sharp, we let our boat drive up, in our crossing, about two
leagues more; and we found the channel grew narrow so fast, that, where
we came to land, it was not full a league over; that about three leagues
farther we found it a mere river, not above as broad as the Thames at
Blackwall.
We found it a steep shore, and, observing a little creek very convenient
for our purpose, we ran in our boats among some flags or rushes, and
laid them as soft and as safe as if they had been in a dock; we went all
on shore immediately, except two men in each boat left to guard our
provisions.
We had for arms, every man a musket, a pistol, and a cutlass; and in
each boat we had six half pikes, to use as we might have occasion. We
had also every man a hatchet, hung in a little frog at his belt; and in
each boat a broad axe and a saw.
We were furnished with strings of beads, bits of glass, glass rings,
ear-rings, pearl necklaces, and suchlike jewellery ware innumerable;
besides knives, scissors, needles, pins, looking-glasses,
drinking-glasses, and toys in great plenty.
We were no sooner on shore but we found people in abundance; for there
were two or three, small towns within a little way of the shore; and I
suppose we might have the more people about us, because, as we
understood afterwards, they had seen us before, though we had not seen
them.
We made signs to them, by putting our fingers to our mouths, and moving
our chaps as if we were eating, that we wanted provisions; and we hung
up a white flag for a truce. They presently understood the first signal,
but knew nothing of the last; and as to provisions, just as had been the
case before, they brought us out roots and fruits, such as they ate
themselves, but such as we had never seen before. Some of them, however,
were very sweet and good, and when we boiled them they tasted much like
an English parsnip; and we gave them strings of beads, pieces of glass,
and such things as we remarked they were fond of.
We found the people, as I observed of the other, very inoffensive and
sincere; not quarrelsome, nor treacherous, nor mischievous in the least.
And we took care not so much as to let them know the use or manner of
our fire-arms for a great while; neither was there one piece fired all
the time we were among the other people, where we had so much gold. If
there had, it had been very probable that they would have fled the
country, in spite of all the good usage we could have been able to have
shown them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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