by Daniel Defoe
them stores ofprovisions; and indeed, so he had; for he had at least fifty menattending him, loaden with roots, and oranges, and maize, and suchthings; in short, he brought them above twenty thousand oranges; a greatparcel of that fruit like a fig, which I mentioned above, and otherfruits. After which another party followed, and brought twenty livedeer, and as many of their rabbits, dead; the latter are as big as ourhares.
As they came up, the king made signs to our men to take them; and ourofficer making signs to thank his majesty, he ordered one of the queen'sattendants to give him one of the feathered robes, such an one as theking himself had on; and made mighty fine with lumps and tassels ofgold, as the other. And a tawny lass advancing to him offered to put itover his head, but he took it in his hand and put it on himself, andlooked as like a jack pudding in it, as any one could desire; for itmade no figure at all upon him, compared to what it did upon theIndians.
When they had received all this, they could not but make a suitablereturn; and therefore our officer caused his reserve to be brought out;and first he gave his majesty a dozen of very handsome drinking-glassesof several sizes; with half a dozen of glass beakers, or cups, to thequeen, for the same use. Then he gave the king a little hanger, and abelt to wear it by his side; and showed him how to buckle it on and takeit off, and how to draw it out, and put it in again.
This was such a present, and the king was so delighted with it, thatour officer said he believed the king did nothing but draw it and put itup again, put it on and pull it off, for near two hours together.
Besides this he gave the king three hatchets, and showed him the uses ofthem; also two large hammers, and a pair of very strong large shears,particularly showing him, that with those hammers they might beat outthe gold lumps which they found in the rivers, and with the shears mightcut the edges round, or into what shape they pleased, when they werebeaten thin.
To the queen he gave six little knives, and a dozen smalllooking-glasses for her ladies; six pairs of scissors, and a small boxfull of large needles; then he gave her some coarse brown thread, andshowed her how to thread the needle, and sew anything together with thethread; all which she admired exceedingly, and called her tawny maids ofhonour about her, that they might learn also. And whilst they werestanding all together, our officer, to divert the king, sewed two of herwomen one to another by the lap of their waistcoats, or what else itmight be called; and when they were a little surprised at it, and began,as he thought, to be a little uneasy, he took the scissors, and at onesnap set them at liberty again, which passed for such an extraordinarypiece of dexterity, that the king would needs have two of them sewedtogether again, on purpose to see it cut again. And then the kingdesired he might have a needle and thread himself, and a pair ofscissors; then he would sew some things together, and cut them asunderagain several times, and laugh most heartily at the ingenuity of it.
Besides the above things, they gave her majesty a pair of ear-rings tohang on her ears, the glass in them looking green like an emerald; aring of silver, with false stones in it, like a rose diamond ring, themiddle stone red like a ruby, which she went presently and gave to theking; but our officer made signs that he had one that was bigger for theking, and accordingly gave the king one much larger; and now they haddone giving presents, as they thought, when the king made a sign to thequeen, which she understood, and, calling one of her women, she broughta small parcel, which the queen gave our officer into his hand, whereinwas about eleven pounds weight of gold-dust, but, as before, no lumps init.
Our men having thus finished their traffick, and being about to comeaway, they made signs to the king, that they would come again and bringhim more fine things; at which the king smiled, and pointing to thegold, as if telling them he would have more of that for them when theycame again.
Our men had now their expectations fully answered; and, as I said, hadended their traffick; and, taking leave of the king and all his retinue,retired to their shallop, the king and queen going away to their city asabove. The wind blowing northerly, they were seven days before they gotdown to us in the ship; during which time they had almost famished thedeer they had left, five of which they had kept to bring us alive, andyet they went two or three times on shore to get food for them by theway.
We were all glad to see them again, and I had a great deal of reason tobe very well satisfied with the account of their traffick, though notmuch with their discovery, for they were not able to give us the leastaccount whether the land was a continent or an island.
But let that be how it will, it is certainly a country yet unfrequentedby any of the Christian part of mankind, and perhaps, may ever be so,and yet may be as rich as any other part of the world yet discovered.The mountains in most of the islands, as well as of the mainland inthose parts, abounding in gold or silver, and, no question, as wellworth searching after as the coast of Guinea; where, though the quantitythey find is considerable, yet it is at this time sought after by somany, and the negroes taught so well how to value it, that but a littleis brought away at a time, and so much given for it, that, computing thecharge of the voyage, is oftentimes more than it is worth.
But though it is true that what gold is found here is a great way off,yet, I am persuaded such quantities are to be had, and the price givenfor it so very trifling, that it would be well worth searching for.
I reckon, that, including the gold our shallop brought, and what we goton shore where we lay, we brought away about twenty-four pounds weightof gold; the expense of which we could not value at above ten or elevenpounds in England, put it all together; and reckoning for all theprovisions we got there, which supplied us for twenty days after we cameaway.
For while our shallop was making her visit thus to the royal family,&c., as is related, our men were not idle on shore, but, partly by tradewith the natives, and by washing the sands in the small rivers, we gotsuch a quantity of gold as well satisfied us for the stay we made.
We had been about eighteen days here when our shallop returned, and westayed a week more trafficking with the people; and I am persuaded, ifwe had been in the mind to have settled there and stayed till now, weshould have been very welcome to the people. We saw neither horse orcow, mule, ass, dog, or cat, or any of our European animals, exceptingthat our men shot some wild ducks and widgeons, exactly the same whichwe see in England, and very fat and good, but much easier to shoot thanin England, having never been acquainted with the flash and noise ofguns as ours have been; we also found a sort of partridges in thecountry not much unlike our own, and a great many of the whistlingplover, the same with ours.
Though this month's stay was unexpected, yet we had no reason to thinkour time ill spent. However, we did not think we ought to lie here toolong whatever we got; so we weighed and stood off to sea, steering stillsouth-east, keeping the shore of this golden country in sight, till ourmen told us they found the land fall off to the south. Then we steeredaway more southerly for six or eight days, not losing sight of, land allthe time, till by an observation we found we were in the latitude of 34 deg.30' south of the line, our meridian distance from the Ladrones 22 deg. 30'east, when a fresh gale of wind springing up at south and by east,obliged us to haul close for that evening. At night it blew such a stormthat we were obliged to yield to the force of it, and go away afore itto the north, or north-by-west, till we came to the point of that landwe passed before. Here, the land tending to the west, we ran in underthe lee of a steep shore, and came to an anchor in twenty-five fathomswater, being the same country we were in before. Here we rode very safefor five days, the wind continuing to blow very hard all the time fromthe south-east.
My men would fain have had me gone ashore again and trafficked with thepeople for more gold; but I, who was still in quest of furtherdiscoveries, thought I knew enough of this place to tempt my friend themerchant, whose favourite design was that of making new discoveries, toanother voyage there, and that was enough for me. So I declined goingon shore again, except that we sent our boats for a recruit of freshwater; and our me
n, while they were filling it, shot a brace of deer, asthey were feeding by the side of a swamp or moist ground, and also somewild ducks. Here we set up a great wooden cross, and wrote on it thenames of our ships and commanders, and the time that we came to ananchor there.
But we were obliged to a farther discovery of this country than weintended, by the following accident. We had unmoored early in themorning, and by eight o'clock were under sail; by ten we had doubled thepoint I mentioned above, and stood away south keeping the shore onboard, at the distance of about two leagues west.
The next day, the officer who had been with the shallop, showed us theopening or mouth where he had put in, and where he had made his traffickwith the king of the country, as said before.
We went on still for two days, and still we found the land extendingitself south, till the third day in the morning, when we were a littlesurprised to find ourselves, as it were, embayed, being in the bottom ofa deep gulf, and the land appearing right
