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第1章 五海而已，也敢卖弄？

here, in case thesavages should have roved over to that side of the country, butthey did not spread so far. With the seven Spaniards came one ofthe three savages, who, as I said, were their prisoners formerly;and with them also came the savage whom the Englishmen had leftbound hand and foot at the tree; for it seems they came that way,saw the slaughter of the seven men, and unbound the eighth, andbrought him along with them; where, however, they were obliged tobind again, as they had the two others who were left when the thirdran away.

　　It is further observable, that these extravagances did not showthemselves in that different manner I have mentioned, in differentpersons only; but all the variety would appear, in a shortsuccession of moments, in one and the same person. A man that wesaw this minute dumb, and, as it were, stupid and confounded, wouldthe next minute be dancing and hallooing like an antic; and thenext moment be tearing his hair, or pulling his clothes to pieces,and stamping them under his feet like a madman; in a few momentsafter that we would have him all in tears, then sick, swooning,and, had not immediate help been had, he would in a few momentshave been dead. Thus it was, not with one or two, or ten ortwenty, but with the greatest part of them; and, if I rememberright, our surgeon was obliged to let blood of about thirtypersons.

　　From this city we had a frightful desert, which held us twenty-three days' march. We furnished ourselves with some tents here,for the better accommodating ourselves in the night; and the leaderof the caravan procured sixteen waggons of the country, forcarrying our water or provisions, and these carriages were ourdefence every night round our little camp; so that had the Tartarsappeared, unless they had been very numerous indeed, they would nothave been able to hurt us. We may well be supposed to have wantedrest again after this long journey; for in this desert we neithersaw house nor tree, and scarce a bush; though we saw abundance ofthe sable-hunters, who are all Tartars of Mogul Tartary; of whichthis country is a part; and they frequently attack small caravans,but we saw no numbers of them together.

　　In the month of May I began to make all ready to pack up; and, as Iwas doing this, it occurred to me that, seeing all these peoplewere banished by the Czar to Siberia, and yet, when they camethere, were left at liberty to go whither they would, why they didnot then go away to any part of the world, wherever they thoughtfit: and I began to examine what should hinder them from makingsuch an attempt. But my wonder was over when I entered upon thatsubject with the person I have mentioned, who answered me thus:"Consider, first, sir," said he, "the place where we are; and,secondly, the condition we are in; especially the generality of thepeople who are banished thither. We are surrounded with strongerthings than bars or bolts; on the north side, an unnavigable ocean,where ship never sailed, and boat never swam; every other way wehave above a thousand miles to pass through the Czar's owndominion, and by ways utterly impassable, except by the roads madeby the government, and through the towns garrisoned by his t

n purposefor their deliverance, yet it was impossible for us wilfully tochange our voyage on their particular account; nor could my nephew,the captain, answer it to the freighters, with whom he was undercharter to pursue his voyage by way of Brazil; and all I knew wecould do for them was to put ourselves in the way of meeting withother ships homeward bound from the West Indies, and get them apassage, if possible, to England or France.

　　The poor wretches, thoroughly humbled, and reduced in number toabout thirty-seven, closed with the proposal at the first offer,and begged to have some food given them; upon which twelveSpaniards and two Englishmen, well armed, with three Indian slavesand old Friday, marched to the place where they were. The threeIndian slaves carried them a large quantity of bread, some riceboiled up to cakes and dried in the sun, and three live goats; andthey were ordered to go to the side of a hill, where they sat down,ate their provisions very thankfully, and were the most faithfulfellows to their words that could be thought of; for, except whenthey came to beg victuals and directions, they never came out oftheir bounds; and there they lived when I came to the island and Iwent to see them. They had taught them both to plant corn, makebread, breed tame goats, and milk them: they wanted nothing butwives in order for them soon to become a nation. They wereconfined to a neck of land, surrounded with high rocks behind the

　　I was most sensibly touched with this disaster, though not at allacquainted with the persons engaged in it; I presently recollectedmy former circumstances, and what condition I was in when taken upby the Portuguese captain; and how much more deplorable thecircumstances of the poor creatures belonging to that ship must be,if they had no other ship in company with them. Upon this Iimmediately ordered that five guns should be fired, one soon afteranother, that, if possible, we might give notice to them that therewas help for them at hand and that they might endeavour to savethemselves in their boat; for though we could see the flames of theship, yet they, it being night, could see nothing of us.

　　I confess I was more moved at their stupidity and brutish worshipof a hobgoblin than ever I was at anything in my life, and,overcome with rage, I rode up to the hideous idol, and with mysword made a stroke at the bonnet that was on its head, and cut itin two; and one of our men that was with me, taking hold of thesheepskin that covered it, pulled at it, when, behold, a mosthideous outcry ran through the village, and two or three hundredpeople came about my ears, so that I was glad to scour for it, forsome had bows and arrows; but I resolved from that moment to visitthem again. Our caravan rested three nights at the town, which wasabout four miles off, in order to provide some horses which theywanted, several of the horses having been lamed and jaded with thelong march over the last desert; so we had some leisure here to putmy design in execution. I communicated it to the Scots merchant,of whose courage I had sufficient testimony; I told him what I hadseen, and with what indignation I had since thought tha

not bebaptized. He told them he doubted they were but indifferentChristians themselves; that they had but little knowledge of God orof His ways, and, therefore, he could not expect that they had saidmuch to their wives on that head yet; but that unless they wouldpromise him to use their endeavours with their wives to persuadethem to become Christians, and would, as well as they could,instruct them in the knowledge and belief of God that made them,and to worship Jesus Christ that redeemed them, he could not marrythem; for he would have no hand in joining Christians with savages,nor was it consistent with the principles of the Christianreligion, and was, indeed, expressly forbidden in God's law.