our approach, yet
mingled freely among us, and soon became quite familiar, shewing great
desire to enter into a friendly correspondence. They soon made us
understand that they did not dwell in this place, to which they resorted
merely for the purpose of fishing, and solicited us in a most friendly
manner to go along with them to their villages. Indeed they conceived a
great friendship for us on acccount of the two prisoners whom we had in
custody, who happened to belong to a nation with whom they were at enmity.
In consideration of their great importunity, twenty-three of us agreed to
go along with them well armed, with a fixed resolution to sell our lives
dear if necessity required. Having remained with them for three days, we
arrived after a journey of three leagues inland at a village consisting of
nine houses, where we were received with many barbarous ceremonies not
worth relating, consisting of dances, songs, lamentations, joy, and
gladness, strangely mixed together, and accompanied with plentiful
entertainments. We remained in that place all night, on which occasion the
natives pressed their wives upon us as companions with so much earnestness
that we could hardly resist. By the middle of the following day a
prodigious number of people crowded to see us, shewing no signs of fear,
and we were entreated by their elders to accompany them to their other
villages, farther inland, with which we complied. It is not easy to
describe the multiplied attentions which we received from them during nine
days, in which time we visited a great number of their villages, on which
occasion those who remained at the ships were exceedingly anxious at our
long absence. On our return to the ships we were accompanied by an
incredible number of men and women, who paid us every possible attention.
If any of us were fatigued with walking, they were eager to carry us in
one of their hammocks. As we had to pass a great many rivers, some of
which were large, they contrived to carry us over with perfect safety.
Many of the natives who were in our train carried in hammocks great
quantities of their own commodities which they had given us, such as the
many-coloured feathers which have been already mentioned, many of their
bows and arrows, and great numbers of variegated parrots. Others of them
carried all their household goods and animals. They were so eager to serve
us, that he who happened to carry any of our company over a river, seemed
transpo