One fair day--I think it was about a year after our sailing from
Deptford--we sighted an island which did not appear on our chart, but
which, on our nearer approach, gave promise of furnishing that
refreshment of which we were in need. It was very well wooded, and we
knew while still a great way off that it was inhabited, seeing through
our perspective glass a good number of canoes about its shore. When we
came within a little distance of it some of the canoes put off towards
us, and a crowd of people stood on the beach, inviting us as well by
their gestures as their loud cries to land. The captain, who had come
out of the roundhouse and sat on a stool by the door, considering that
the fertility of the place and the friendliness of the natives favoured
us, ordered the vessel to be hove to, and a boat to be made ready, with
casks for bringing back a supply of water. He then appointed a dozen
of the crew to man the boat, calling them before him, and commanding
them very strictly that they should not stray far from the
neighbourhood of the beach, but fill their casks at the nearest spring
or freshet, and purchase what vegetables and fruit they could in
exchange for such trifles as I have before mentioned. I observed that
the captain had not chosen Wabberley and Hoggett, or any other of the
men whom we certainly knew to be disaffected: indeed, both Hoggett and
Chick, with several more, were then sick of the scurvy. The captain
set Mr. Bodger over the boat's crew, and he went with a cutlass and two
pistols in his belt, but the men were without arms.
As soon as they set off, being accompanied by two canoes which had by
this time reached our vessel, Mr. Lummis, at a word from the captain,
commanded the men that remained on board to collect all the arms that
were in the ship and bring them into the roundhouse. It was plain from
their looks that they were amazed and confounded at this order, which
they obeyed very sullenly, Mr. Lummis having in sight of them all stuck
a pistol in his belt. As they went to and fro they eyed the captain
suspiciously, and cast many a glance towards the shore, where their
fellows were beginning their task amid a great uproar of the natives.
It had been arranged between the captain and Mr. Lummis that this
precaution regarding the arms should be taken when the crew was thus
divided, so that we should have the means of coping with any mutinous
outbreak. The captain also insisted that I should take a pistol, which
I was loath to do, having never fired one in my life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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