The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Eleven Volumes, Volume 06: Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent PersonsJohnson, Samuel
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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
Drake was far from countenancing their errours, or taking advantage of
their weakness, to injure or molest them; and, therefore, having
directed them to lay aside their bows and arrows, he presented them
with linen, and other necessaries, of which he showed them the use.
They then returned to their habitations, about three quarters of a
mile from the English camp, where they made such loud and violent
outcries, that they were heard by the English, who found that they
still persisted in their first notions, and were paying them their
kind of melancholy adoration.
Two days afterwards they perceived the approach of a far more numerous
company, who stopped at the top of a hill, which overlooked the
English settlement, while one of them made a long oration, at the end
of which all the assembly bowed their bodies, and pronounced the
syllable _oh_, with a solemn tone, as by way of confirmation of
what had been said by the orator. Then the men, laying down their
bows, and leaving the women and children on the top of the hill, came
down towards the tents, and seemed transported, in the highest degree,
at the kindness of the general, who received their gifts, and admitted
them to his presence. The women at a distance appeared seized with a
kind of phrensy, such as that of old among the pagans in some of their
religious ceremonies, and in honour, as it seemed, of their guests,
tore their cheeks and bosoms with their nails, and threw themselves
upon the stones with their naked bodies, till they were covered with
blood.
These cruel rites, and mistaken honours, were by no means agreeable to
Drake, whose predominant sentiments were notions of piety, and,
therefore, not to make that criminal in himself by his concurrence,
which, perhaps, ignorance might make guiltless in them, he ordered his
whole company to fall upon their knees, and, with their eyes lifted up
to heaven, that the savages might observe that their worship was
addressed to a being residing there, they all joined in praying that
this harmless and deluded people might be brought to the knowledge of
the true religion, and the doctrines of our blessed Saviour; after
which they sung psalms, a performance so pleasing to their wild
audience, that, in all their visits, they generally first accosted
them with a request that they would sing. They then returned all the
presents which they had received, and retired.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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