Here we found the country barren enough, but yet we had by his direction
plenty of food; for the savages round us, upon giving them some of our
toys, as I have so often mentioned, brought us in whatever they had;
and here we found some maize, or Indian wheat, which the negro women
planted, as we sow seeds in a garden, and immediately our new provider
ordered some of our negroes to plant it, and it grew up presently, and
by watering it often, we had a crop in less than three months' growth.
As soon as we were settled, and our camp fixed, we fell to the old
trade of fishing for gold in the rivers mentioned above, and our English
gentleman so well knew how to direct our search, that we scarce ever
lost our labour.
One time, having set us to work, he asked if we would give him leave,
with four or five negroes, to go out for six or seven days to seek his
fortune, and see what he could discover in the country, assuring us
whatever he got should be for the public stock. We all gave him our
consent, and lent him a gun; and two of our men desiring to go with him,
they took then six negroes with them, and two of our buffaloes that
came with us the whole journey; they took about eight days' provision of
bread with them, but no flesh, except about as much dried flesh as would
serve them two days.
They travelled up to the top of the mountains I mentioned just now,
where they saw (as our men afterwards vouched it to be) the same desert
which we were so justly terrified at when we were on the farther side,
and which, by our calculation, could not be less than 300 miles broad
and above 600 miles in length, without knowing where it ended.
The journal of their travels is too long to enter upon here. They
stayed out two-and-fifty days, when they brought us seventeen pound and
something more (for we had no exact weight) of gold-dust, some of it in
much larger pieces than any we had found before, besides about fifteen
ton of elephants' teeth, which he had, partly by good usage and partly
by bad, obliged the savages of the country to fetch, and bring down to
him from the mountains, and which he made others bring with him quite
down to our camp. Indeed, we wondered what was coming to us when we saw
him attended with above 200 negroes; but he soon undeceived us, when he
made them all throw down their burdens on a heap at the entrance of our
camp.
Besides this, they brought two lions' skins, and five leopards' skins,
very large and very fine. He asked our pardon for his long stay, and
that he had made no greater a booty, but told us he had one excursion
more to make, which he hoped should turn to a better account.
So, having rested himself and rewarded the savages that brought the
teeth for him with some bits of silver and iron cut out diamond fashion,
and with two shaped like little dogs, he sent them away mightily
pleased.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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