The Discoveries of America to the Year 1525 — John Shaqi
The Discoveries of America to the Year 1525Weise, Arthur James
History
The Discoveries of America to the Year 1525
Weise, Arthur James
America -- Discovery and exploration
“As this man’s fame spread among the different tribes, there was a
neighboring chief who was very anxious to have him with him and to see
how he practised his wonderful art of catching fish. With this object
in view he made war on the other chief with whom the fisherman was, and
being more powerful and a better warrior, he, at last, overcame him, and
so the fisherman was sent to him with the rest of his companions. During
the space of thirteen years that he dwelt in those parts, he says, he
was sent in this manner to more than five-and-twenty chiefs, for they
were continually fighting among themselves, this chief with that one,
and solely for the purpose of having the fisherman to dwell with them,
so that wandering up and down the country without any fixed abode, he
became acquainted with almost all those regions. He says that it is a
very great country, and, as it were, a new world. The people are very
rude and uncultivated, for they all go naked, and suffer bitterly from
the cold, nor have they the sense to clothe themselves with skins of the
animals which they take in hunting. They have no kind of metal. They
live by hunting, and carry lances of wood, sharpened at the point. They
have bows, the strings of which are made of beasts’ skins. They are very
fierce, and have deadly wars with one another, and eat the flesh of their
captives. They have chiefs and certain laws, but differing in different
tribes. The farther you go southwestward, however, the more refinement
you meet with, because the climate is more temperate, but there they have
cities and temples dedicated to their idols, in which they sacrifice men
and afterward eat them. In those parts they have some knowledge and use
of gold and silver.
“This fisherman after dwelling so many years in those parts resolved
to return home if possible to his own country, but his companions,
despairing of ever seeing it again, gave him Godspeed, and remained where
they were. Accordingly he bade them farewell and made his escape through
the woods in the direction of Drogio, where he was welcomed and kindly
received by the chief of the place, who knew him and was a great enemy
of the neighboring chief. Thus passing from one chief to another, being
the same with whom he had been before, he, at last, reached, after a long
time and many hardships, Drogio, where he remained three years. Here by
good fortune he learned from the natives that some boats had appeared off
the coast, and hopeful of being able to carry out his intention, he went
to the beach, and found to his great delight that the men on board the
boats had come from Estotiland. He immediately begged them to take him
back with them, which they willingly consented to do. He understood the
language of the country which none of them could speak, and they employed
him as an interpreter. Afterward he traded in company with them to such
good purpose that he became very rich, and having fitted out a vessel of
his own he returned to Frisland.”[73]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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