As soon as the weather proved fair again, he told us he would not press
us to any further stay, since we did not care whether we got any more
gold or no; that we were indeed the first men he ever met with in his
life that said they had gold enough, and of whom it might be truly said,
that, when it lay under our feet, we would not stoop to take it up. But,
since he had made us a promise, he would not break it, nor press us to
make any further stay; only he thought he ought to tell us that now was
the time, after the land-flood, when the greatest quantity of gold was
found; and that, if we stayed but one month, we should see thousands of
savages spread themselves over the whole country to wash the gold out
of the sand, for the European ships which would come on the coast; that
they do it then, because the rage of the floods always works down a
great deal of gold out of the hills; and, if we took the advantage to
be there before them, we did not know what extraordinary things we might
find.
This was so forcible, and so well argued, that it appeared in all our
faces we were prevailed upon; so we told him we would all stay: for
though it was true we were all eager to be gone, yet the evident
prospect of so much advantage could not well be resisted; that he was
greatly mistaken, when he suggested that we did not desire to increase
our store of gold, and in that we were resolved to make the utmost use
of the advantage that was in our hands, and would stay as long as any
gold was to be had, if it was another year.
He could hardly express the joy he was in on this occasion; and the fair
weather coming on, we began, just as he directed, to search about the
rivers for more gold. At first we had but little encouragement, and
began to be doubtful; but it was very plain that the reason was,
the water was not fully fallen, or the rivers reduced to their usual
channel; but in a few days we were fully requited, and found much more
gold than at first, and in bigger lumps; and one of our men washed out
of the sand a piece of gold as big as a small nut, which weighed, by our
estimation--for we had no small weights--almost an ounce and a half.
This success made us extremely diligent; and in little more than a month
we had altogether gotten near sixty pound weight of gold; but after
this, as he told us, we found abundance of the savages, men, women, and
children, hunting every river and brook, and even the dry land of the
hills for gold; so that we could do nothing like then, compared to what
we had done before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account