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.
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