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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
When we had travelled one day's journey, the guides, who were fivein number, called all the passengers, except the servants, to agreat council, as they called it. At this council every onedeposited a certain quantity of money to a common stock, for thenecessary expense of buying forage on the way, where it was nototherwise to be had, and for satisfying the guides, getting horses,and the like. Here, too, they constituted the journey, as theycall it, viz. they named captains and officers to draw us all up,and give the word of command, in case of an attack, and give everyone their turn of command; nor was this forming us into order anymore than what we afterwards found needful on the way.
It was the beginning of June when I left this remote place. Wewere now reduced to a very small caravan, having only thirty-twohorses and camels in all, which passed for mine, though my newguest was proprietor of eleven of them. It was natural also that Ishould take more servants with me than I had before; and the younglord passed for my steward; what great man I passed for myself Iknow not, neither did it concern me to inquire. We had here theworst and the largest desert to pass over that we met with in ourwhole journey; I call it the worst, because the way was very deepin some places, and very uneven in others; the best we had to sayfor it was, that we thought we had no troops of Tartars or robbersto fear, as they never came on this side of the river Oby, or atleast very seldom; but we found it otherwise.
Nor did it fail of its usual operations upon the fancy, byheightening every danger; representing the English and Dutchcaptains to be men incapable of hearing reason, or ofdistinguishing between honest men and rogues; or between a storycalculated for our own turn, made out of nothing, on purpose todeceive, and a true, genuine account of our whole voyage, progress,and design; for we might many ways have convinced any reasonablecreatures that we were not pirates; the goods we had on board, thecourse we steered, our frankly showing ourselves, and entering intosuch and such ports; and even our very manner, the force we had,the number of men, the few arms, the little ammunition, shortprovisions; all these would have served to convince any men that wewere no pirates. The opium and other goods we had on board wouldmake it appear the ship had been at Bengal. The Dutchmen, who, itwas said, had the names of all the men that were in the ship, mighteasily see that we were a mixture of English, Portuguese, andIndians,
I got so much money by my first adventure, and such an insight intothe method of getting more, that had I been twenty years younger, Ishould have been tempted to have stayed here, and sought no fartherfor making my fortune; but what was all this to a man upwards ofthreescore, that was rich enough, and came abroad more in obedienceto a restless desire of seeing the world than a covetous desire ofgaining by it? A restless desire it really was, for when I was athome I was restless to go abroad; and when I was abroad I wasrestless to be at home. I say, what was this gain to me? I wasrich enough already, nor had I any uneasy desires about gettingmore money; therefore the profit of the voyage to me was of nogreat force for the prompting me forward to further undertakings.Hence, I thought that by this voyage I had made no progress at all,because I was come back, as I might call it, to the place fromwhence I came, as to a home: whereas, my eye, like that whichSolomon speaks of, was never satisfied with seeing.
