with their feet, others wringing their hands; some were dancing, several
singing, some laughing, more crying; many quite dumb, not able to speak
a word; others sick and vomiting, several swooning, and ready to faint;
and a few were crossing themselves and giving God thanks.

I would not wrong them neither; there might he many that were thankful
afterward; but the passion was too strong for them at first, and they
were not able to master it; they were thrown into ecstasies and a kind
of frenzy, and so there were but a very few who were composed and
serious in their joy.

Perhaps also the case may have some addition to it, from the particular
circumstance of the nation they belonged to; I mean the French, whose
temper is allowed to be more volatile, more passionate, and more
sprightly, and their spirits more fluid, than of other nations. I am not
philosopher to determine the cause, but nothing I had ever seen before
came up to it: the ecstasies poor Friday, my trusty savage, was in, when
he found his father in the boat, came the nearest to it; and the
surprise of the master, and his two companions, whom I delivered from
the two villains that set them on shore in the island, came a little way
towards it; but nothing was to compare to this, either that I saw in
Friday, or any where else in my life.

It is farther observable, that these extravagances did not shew
themselves in that different manner I have mentioned, in different
persons only: but all the variety would appear in a short succession of
moments, in one and the same person. A man that we saw this minute dumb,
and, as it were, stupid and confounded, should the next minute be
dancing and hallooing like an antic; and the next moment a-tearing his
hair, or pulling his clothes to pieces, and stamping them under his feet
like a madman; a few minutes after that, we should have him all in
tears, then sick, then swooning; and had not immediate help been had,
would in a few moments more have been dead; and thus it was, not with
one or two, or ten or twenty, but with the greatest part of them; and,
if I remember right, our surgeon was obliged to let above thirty of
them blood.

There were two priests among them, one an old man, and the other a young
man; and that which was strangest was, that the oldest man was
the worst.

As soon as he set his foot on board our ship, and saw himself safe, he
dropped down stone dead, to all appearance; not the least sign of life
cou