by Daniel Defoe
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Our people went quite in with the shore, where they found several menand women crowded together to look at us. When our men came close to theland they hung out a white flag, but the wild people understood nothingof the meaning of it, but stood looking and amazed, and we have greatreason to believe that they never had seen any ship or bark of anynation before. We found on our landing, no boats or sails, or anythingthey had to make use of on the water; but some days after we saw severalsmall canoes, with three or four men in each.
Our men not being able to speak a word for them to understand, or toknow what was said to them, the first thing they did, was to make signsto them for something to eat; upon which three of them seemed to goaway, and coming again in a few minutes, brought with them severalbundles or bunches of roots, some plantains, and some green lemons, orlimes, and laid down all upon the coast. Our men took courage then to goon shore, and, taking up what they brought, set up a stick, and upon theend of it hung five bunches or strings of blue and white beads, and wenton board again.
Never was such joy among a wild people discovered, as these nativesshowed, when they took the beads off the stick; they danced and capered,and made a thousand antic gestures, and, inviting our men on shore, laidtheir hands upon their breasts across, and then looked up, intimating asolemn oath not to hurt us.
Our men made signs, by which they made them understand, that they wouldcome again next morning, and also that they should bring us moreeatables; accordingly, we sent three boats the next morning, and our mencarried knives, scissors, beads, looking-glasses, combs, and any toysthey had, not forgetting glass beads and glass ear-rings in abundance.
The Indians were very ready to meet us, and brought us fruits and herbsas before; but three of them, who stood at a distance, held each of thema creature exactly like a goat, but without horns or beard; and thesewere brought to traffick with us.
We brought out our goods, and offered every one something; but thevariety was surprising to them who had never seen such things before.But that which was most valuable of all our things, was a hatchet, whichone of their principal men took up and looked at it, felt the edge, andlaid it down; then took it up again, and wanted to know the use of it:upon which one of our men took it, and stepping to a tree that stoodnear, cut off a small bough of it at one blow. The man was surprised,and ran to the tree with it, to see if he could do the same, and findinghe could, he laid it down, ran with all his might into the country, andby-and-by returning, came with two men more with him, to show them thiswonderful thing, a hatchet.
But if they were surprised with the novelty of a hatchet, our men wereas much surprised to see hanging round the ears of both the men that hebrought with him, large flat pieces of pure gold. The thread which theyhung by was made of the hair of the goats, twisted very prettilytogether and very strong.
Our men offering to handle them, to see if they were gold, one of themen took off his two gold bobs, and offered them to our men for thehatchet. Our men seemed to make much difficulty of it, as if the hatchetwas of much greater value than those trifles; upon which he, being as wefound, superior, made the other, who came with him, pull off his twoear-jewels also; and so our unreasonable people took them all four,being of pure gold, and weighing together some grains above two ounces,in exchange for an old rusty hatchet. However unreasonable the pricewas, the purchaser did not think it so; and so over-fond was he of thehatchet, that as soon as he had it for his own, he ran to the tree, andin a few minutes had so laid about him with the hatchet, that there wasnot a twig left on it that was within his reach.
This exchange was a particular hint to me; and I presently directly mychief mate, and Captain Merlotte, to go on shore the next day, andacquaint themselves as much as they could with the natives, and, ifpossible, to find out where they had this gold, and if any quantity wasto be found.
Captain Merlotte and my chief mate bestowed their time so well, andobliged the natives so much, by the toys and trifles they gave them,that they presently told them that the gold, which they called Aarah,was picked up in the rivers that came down from a mountain which theypointed to, a great way off. Our men prevailed with three of them, to gowith them to one of these rivers, and gave them beads and such things toencourage them, but no hatchet; that was kept up at a high rate, and asa rarity fit only for a king, or some great man who wore Aarah on hisears.
In a word, they came to the river where they said they found this Aarah;and the first thing our men observed there, was an Indian sitting on theground, and beating something upon a great stone, with another stone inhis hand for his hammer: they went to see what he was doing, and foundhe had got a lump of gold from the sand, as big as a swan-shot, of noregular shape, but full of corners, neither round nor square; and theman was beating it flat as well as he could.
One of our men, who had a hatchet in his hand, made signs to him to lethim flatten it for him; and so turning the back part of the hatchet,which served the purpose of a hammer, he beat the piece of gold flat inan instant; and then turning it upon the edge, beat it that way until hebrought it to be round also.
This was so surprising to the man who had been beating, that he stoodlooking on with all the tokens of joy and amazement; and, desiring tosee the hatchet, looked this way and that way, upon those of hiscountrymen who came with us, as if asking them if ever they saw thelike.
When our man had done, he made signs to know if he had any more Aarah;the man said nothing, but went down to the brink of the river, and,putting his hand into a hole, he brought out three little lumps of gold,and a great many smaller, some of them about as big as a large pin'shead; all which he had laid up there, in the hollow of a stone. Our manthought it was too much, to take all that for the hatchet; and thereforepulled out some beads, and pieces of glass, and such toys; and, inshort, bought all this cargo of gold, which in the whole weighed nearfive ounces, for about the value of two shillings.
Though these bargains were very agreeable to us, yet the discovery ofsuch a place, and of such a fund of treasure, in a part of the world,which it is very probable, was never before seen by any European eyes,nor so much as inquired after, was the greatest satisfaction imaginableto me; knowing the adventurous temper of the gentleman who was ourprincipal employer. Upon this account, while my men busied themselves intheir daily search after gold, and in finding out the rivers from whenceit came, or rather where it was found, I employed myself to be fullyinformed where this place was; whether it was an island or a continent;and having found a tolerable good road for our ships to ride in, Icaused my two shallops, well manned, to run along the coast, both eastand west, to find which way it lay, and whether they could find any endof it; as also to see what rivers, what people, and what provisions theycould meet with.
By my observation, I found that we were in the latitude of 27 deg. 13' southmeridian; distance from the Ladrones about 16 deg. east. While my shallopswere gone, I went on shore, and some of my men set up tents, as well forthe convenience of their traffick, as for their resting on shore allnight; keeping, however, a good guard, and having two of our ship's dogswith them, who never failed giving them notice, whenever any of thenatives came near them; for what ailed the dogs I know not, but neitherof them could bear the sight of the Indians, and we had much to do tokeep them from flying at them.
While we rode here, we had the most violent storm of wind with rain, andwith great claps of thunder, that we had yet sustained since we came outof England. It was our comfort that the wind came off shore, for it blewat south, and shifting between the south, south-east, and south-west,with such excessive gusts, and so furious, and withal, not only bysqualls and sudden flaws, but a settled terrible tempest, that had itbeen from off sea, as it was off shore, we must have perished, there hadbeen no remedy, and even as it was, we rode in great danger. Myboatswain called out twice to me to cut my masts by the board,protesting we should either bring our anchors home, or founder as werode; and indeed the sea broke over us many times in a terrible manner.As I said before, we had
an indifferent good road, and so we had, butnot a very good one, for the land was low; and on the east we lay alittle open. However, our ground-tackle was good, and our ship verytight, and I told the boatswain I would rather slip the cable and go offto sea than cut the masts. However, in about four hours' time more wefound the wind abate, though it blew very hard for three days after.
I was in great pain for my two shallops in this tempest, but they hadboth the good luck to lie close under the shore; and one indeed hadhauled quite upon the land, where the men lay on shore under their sail,so that they got no damage; and about three days after, one of themreturned, and brought me word they had been to the west, where they hadmade very little discovery, as to the situation of the country, orwhether it was an island or a continent, but they had conversed with thenatives very often, and found several who had pieces of gold hanging,some in their hair, some about their necks; and they made a shift tobring as many with them as weighed, all put together,
