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第1章 进入洞天

　　I shall not pester the reader with a tedious description of places,journals of our voyage, variations of the compass, latitudes,trade-winds, &c.; it is enough to name the ports and places whichwe touched at, and what occurred to us upon our passages from oneto another. We touched first at the island of Madagascar, where,though the people are fierce and treacherous, and very well armedwith lances and bows, which they use with inconceivable dexterity,yet we fared very well with them a while. They treated us verycivilly; and for some trifles which we gave them, such as knives,scissors, &c., they brought us eleven good fat bullocks, of amiddling size, which we took in, partly for fresh provisions forour present spending, and the rest to salt for the ship's use.

　　I was a little surprised then, indeed, and so was my nephew thecaptain; for he had heard such terrible stories of them in theisland, and having never been in those seas before, that he couldnot tell what to think of it, but said, two or three times, weshould all be devoured. I must confess, considering we werebecalmed, and the current set strong towards the shore, I liked itthe worse; however, I bade them not be afraid, but bring the shipto an anchor as soon as we came so near as to know that we mustengage them. The weather continued calm, and they came on apacetowards us, so I gave orders to come to an anchor, and furl all oursails; as for the savages, I told them they had nothing to fear butfire, and therefore they should get their boats out, and fastenthem, one close by the head and the other by the stern, and manthem both well, and wait the issue in that posture: this I did,that the men in the boats might he ready with sheets and buckets toput out any fire these savages might endeavour to fix to theo

　　The Spaniards were greatly surprised at this sight and perfectly ata loss what to do. The Spaniard governor, as it happened, was withthem, and his advice was asked, but he professed he knew not whatto do. As for slaves, they had enough already; and as to killingthem, there were none of them inclined to do that: the Spaniardgovernor told me they could not think of shedding innocent blood;for as to them, the poor creatures had done them no wrong, invadednone of their property, and they thought they had no just quarrelagainst them, to take away their lives. And here I must, injustice to these Spaniards, observe that, let the accounts ofSpanish cruelty in Mexico and Peru be what they will, I never metwith seventeen men of any nation whatsoever, in any foreigncountry, who were so universally modest, temperate, virtuous, sovery good-humoured, and so courteous, as these Spaniards: and asto cruelty, they had nothing of it in their very nature; noinhumanity, no barbarity, no outrageous passions; and yet all oft

e found; we inquiredmuch about them, and at length were told that they were all gonetogether by land to Agra, the great city of the Mogul's residence,to proceed from thence to Surat, and then go by sea to the Gulf ofPersia.

ich I readily agreedto, for I wonderfully liked the man, and had very good reason, aswill appear afterwards; also four of the seamen entered themselveson our ship, and proved very useful fellows.

　　Then the Englishmen asked the Spaniards if they designed to takeany of them? But every one of them answered "No." Some of themsaid they had wives in Spain, and the others did not like womenthat were not Christians; and all together declared that they wouldnot touch one of them, which was an instance of such virtue as Ihave not met with in all my travels. On the other hand, the fiveEnglishmen took them every one a wife, that is to say, a temporarywife; and so they set up a new form of living; for the Spaniardsand Friday's father lived in my old habitation, which they hadenlarged exceedingly within. The three servants which were takenin the last battle of the savages lived with them; and thesecarried on the main part of the colony, supplied all the rest withfood, and assisted them in anything as they could, or as they foundnecessity required.

　　W.A. - What, will my wicked life hinder you from believing in God?What a dreadful creature am I! and what a sad truth is it, that thehorrid lives of Christians hinder the conversion of heathens!

　　"All this night I had no sleep; but the hunger was now turned intoa disease; and I had a terrible colic and griping, by wind insteadof food having found its way into the bowels; and in this conditionI lay till morning, when I was surprised by the cries andlamentations of my young master, who called out to me that hismother was dead. I lifted myself up a little, for I had notstrength to rise, but found she was not dead, though she was ableto give very little signs of life. I had then such convulsions inmy stomach, for want of some sustenance, as I cannot describe; withsuch frequent throes and pangs of appetite as nothing but thetortures of death can imitate; and in this condition I was when Iheard the seamen above cry out, 'A sail! a sail!' and halloo andjump about as if they were distracted. I was not able to get offfrom the bed, and my mistress much less; and my young master was sosick that I thought he had been expiring; so we could not open thecabin door, or get any account what it was that occasioned

　　Two of those boats (which by our glasses we could see were English)outsailed the rest, were near two leagues ahead of them, and gainedupon us considerably, so that we found they would come up with us;upon which we fired a gun without ball, to intimate that theyshould bring to: and we put out a flag of truce, as a signal forparley: but they came crowding after us till within shot, when wetook in our white flag, they having made no answer to it, and hungout a red flag, and fired at them with a shot. Notwithstandingthis, they came on till they were near enough to call to them witha speaking-trumpet, bidding them keep off at their peril.