Indeed They Conceived A
Great Friendship For Us On Acccount Of The Two Prisoners Whom We Had In
Custody, Who
Happened to belong to a nation with whom they were at enmity.
In consideration of their great importunity, twenty-three
Of us agreed to
go along with them well armed, with a fixed resolution to sell our lives
dear if necessity required. Having remained with them for three days, we
arrived after a journey of three leagues inland at a village consisting of
nine houses, where we were received with many barbarous ceremonies not
worth relating, consisting of dances, songs, lamentations, joy, and
gladness, strangely mixed together, and accompanied with plentiful
entertainments. We remained in that place all night, on which occasion the
natives pressed their wives upon us as companions with so much earnestness
that we could hardly resist. By the middle of the following day a
prodigious number of people crowded to see us, shewing no signs of fear,
and we were entreated by their elders to accompany them to their other
villages, farther inland, with which we complied. It is not easy to
describe the multiplied attentions which we received from them during nine
days, in which time we visited a great number of their villages, on which
occasion those who remained at the ships were exceedingly anxious at our
long absence. On our return to the ships we were accompanied by an
incredible number of men and women, who paid us every possible attention.
If any of us were fatigued with walking, they were eager to carry us in
one of their hammocks.
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