[Footnote 208:

Purch.

Pilg. I. 414.]

"This should have followed next after Master Hawkins, with whom William Finch went into the Mogolls country, if I then had had it. But better a good dish, though not in duest place of service, than not at all: Neither is he altogether born out of due time, which comes in due place, while we are yet in India, and in time also, before the Mogoll affairs received any latter access or better maturity: And for that circumstance failing, you shall find it supplied in substance, with more accurate observations of men, beasts, plants, cities, deserts, castles, buildings, regions, religions, than almost any other; as also of ways, wares, and wars." - Purchas.

* * * * *

Sec. 1. Remembrances respecting Sierra Leona, in August 1607, the Bay, Country, Inhabitants, Rites, Fruits, and Commodities.

The island, which we fell in with some ten leagues south from the bay of Sierra Leona, in lat. 8 deg. N. has no inhabitants; neither did I learn its name. It has some plantains, and, by report, good watering and wooding for ships; but about a league from the shore there is a dangerous ledge of rock, scarcely visible at high water. The bay of Sierra Leona is about three leagues broad, being high land on the south side, full of trees to the very edge of the water, and having several coves, in which we caught plenty and variety of fish. On the farther side of the fourth cove is the watering place, having excellent water continually running. Here on the rocks we found the names of various Englishmen who had been there. Among these was Sir Francis Drake, who had been there twenty-seven years before; Thomas Candish, Captain Lister, and others. About the middle of the bay, right out from the third cove, lieth a sand, near about which there are not above two or three fathoms, but in most other parts eight or ten close in shore. The tide flows E.S.E. the highest water being six or eight feet, and the tide is very strong. The latitude is 8 deg. 30' N.

The king of Sierra Leona resides at the bottom of the bay, and is called by the Moors Borea, or Captain Caran, caran, caran, having other petty kings or chiefs under him; one of whom, called Captain Pinto, a wretched old man, dwells at a town within the second cove; and on the other side of the bay is Captain Boloone. The dominions of Borea stretch 40 leagues inland, from which he receives a tribute in cotton-cloth, elephants teeth, and gold; and has the power of selling his people as slaves, some of whom he offered to us. Some of them have been converted to Christianity by the Portuguese priests and Jesuits, who have a chapel, in which is a table inscribed with the days that are to be observed as holy. The king and a few of his principal attendants are decently clothed in jackets and breeches; but the common people have only a slight cotton-cloth round their waists, while the women have a kind of short petticoat or apron down to their knees; all the rest of their bodies, both men and women, being quite naked; the young people of both sexes having no dress whatever. All the people, both men and women, have all parts of their bodies very curiously and ingeniously traced and pinked [tatooed], and have their teeth filed very sharp. They pull off all the hair from their eye-lids. The men have their beards short, black, and cropped, and the hair on their heads strangely cut into crisped paths or cross alleys; while others wear theirs in strange jagged tufts, or other foolish forms; the women's heads being all close shaved.

Their town contains not more than thirty or forty houses, all irregularly clustered together, all thatched with reeds; yet each has a kind of yard inclosed with mud walls, like our hovels or hog-styles in England. Instead of a locked and bolted door, the entrance is only closed by a mat, having nothing to be stolen; and for bedsteads they have only a few billets covered by a mat; yet some have hangings of mats, especially about their beds. Their furniture consists of two or three earthen pots to hold water, and to boil such provisions as they can get; a gourd or two for palm-wine; half a gourd to serve as a drinking cup; a few earthen dishes for their loblolly or pottage; a basket for the maria [wife], to gather cockles; and a knapsack for the man, made of bark, to carry his provisions, with his pipe and tobacco. When a negro man goes from home, he has always his knapsack on his back, in which he has his provisions and tobacco, his pipe being seldom from his mouth; besides which, he has always his do-little sword by his side, made by themselves of such iron as they get from the Europeans; his bow also, and quiver full of poisoned arrows, pointed with iron like a snake's-tongue, or else a case of javelins or darts, having iron heads of good breadth and made sharp, sometimes both.

The men of this country are large and well-made, strong and courageous, and of civilized manners for heathens; as they keep most faithfully to their wives, of whom they are not a little jealous. I could not learn their religion; for though they have some idols, they seem to know that there is a God in heaven, as, when we asked them about their wooden puppets, they used to lift up their hands to heaven. All their children are circumcised, but I could not learn the reason why. They are very just and true in their dealings, and theft is punished with instant death. When any one dies, a small thatched roof is erected over his bier, under which are set earthen pots kept always full of water, and some earthen plates with different kinds of food, a few bones being stuck up around the body.

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