The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Eleven Volumes, Volume 06: Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent PersonsJohnson, Samuel
General
The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Eleven Volumes, Volume 06: Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons
Johnson, Samuel
English essays -- 18th century
Here, going on shore, they met with no inhabitants, though there were
several houses or huts standing, in which they found a good quantity
of dried fowls, and among them a great number of ostriches, of which
the thighs were as large as those of a sheep. These birds are too
heavy and unwieldy to rise from the ground, but with the help of their
wings run so swiftly, that the English could never come near enough to
shoot at them. The Indians, commonly, by holding a large plume of
feathers before them, and walking gently forward, drive the ostriches
into some narrow neck, or point of land, then, spreading a strong net
from one side to the other, to hinder them from returning back to the
open fields, set their dogs upon them, thus confined between the net
and the water, and when they are thrown on their backs, rush in and
take them.
Not finding this harbour convenient, or well stored with wood and
water, they left it on the 15th of May, and, on the 18th, entered
another much safer, and more commodious, which they no sooner arrived
at, than Drake, whose restless application never remitted, sent Winter
to the southward, in quest of those ships which were absent, and
immediately after sailed himself to the northward, and, happily
meeting with the Swan, conducted it to the rest of the fleet; after
which, in pursuance of his former resolution, he ordered it to be
broken up, reserving the iron-work for a future supply. The other
vessel, which they lost in the late storm, could not be discovered.
While they were thus employed upon an island about a mile from the
mainland, to which, at low water, there was a passage on foot, they
were discovered by the natives, who appeared upon a hill at a
distance, dancing and holding up their hands, as beckoning the English
to them; which Drake observing, sent out a boat, with knives, bells,
and bugles, and such things as, by their usefulness or novelty, he
imagined would be agreeable. As soon as the English landed, they
observed two men running towards them, as deputed by the company, who
came within a little distance, and then standing still could not be
prevailed upon to come nearer. The English, therefore, tied their
presents to a pole, which they fixed in the ground, and then retiring,
saw the Indians advance, who, taking what they found upon the pole,
left in return such feathers as they wear upon their heads, with a
small bone about six inches in length, carved round the top, and
burnished.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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