However, all this did not make them fly, which was what we wanted, nor
did we find any of them die as it were with fear, as at first; so we
resolved upon a second volley, and then to advance as we did before.
Whereupon our reserved men advancing, we resolved to fire only three men
at a time, and move forward like an army firing in platoon; so, being
all in a line, we fired, first three on the right, then three on the
left, and so on; and every time we killed or wounded some of them, but
still they did not fly, and yet they were so frighted that they used
none of their bows and arrows, or of their lances; and we thought their
numbers increased upon our hands, particularly we thought so by the
noise. So I called to our men to halt, and bid them pour in one whole
volley and then shout, as we did in our first fight, and so run in upon
them and knock them down with our muskets.
But they were too wise for that too, for as soon as we had fired a whole
volley and shouted, they all ran away, men, women, and children, so fast
that in a few moments we could not see one creature of them except some
that were wounded and lame, who lay wallowing and screaming here and
there upon the ground as they happened to fall.
Upon this we came up to the field of battle, where we found we had
killed thirty-seven of them, among which were three women, and had
wounded about sixty-four, among which were two women; by wounded I
mean such as were so maimed as not to be able to go away, and those our
negroes killed afterwards in a cowardly manner in cold blood, for which
we were very angry, and threatened to make them go to them if they did
so again.
There was no great spoil to be got, for they were all stark naked as
they came into the world, men and women together, some of them having
feathers stuck in their hair, and others a kind of bracelet about their
necks, but nothing else; but our negroes got a booty here, which we were
very glad of, and this was the bows and arrows of the vanquished, of
which they found more than they knew what to do with, belonging to the
killed and wounded men; these we ordered them to pick up, and they
were very useful to us afterwards. After the fight, and our negroes had
gotten bows and arrows, we sent them out in parties to see what they
could get, and they got some provisions; but, which was better than all
the rest, they brought us four more young bulls, or buffaloes, that
had been brought up to labour and to carry burthens. They knew them, it
seems, by the burthens they had carried having galled their backs, for
they have no saddles to cover them with in that country.
Those creatures not only eased our negroes, but gave us an opportunity
to carry more provisions; and our negroes loaded them very hard at this
place with flesh and roots, such as we wanted very much afterwards.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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