Part 4 (1/2)
Our men were tired with the execution, and killed or hty of thehtened out of their wits, scoured through the woods and over the hills, with all the speed that fear and nimble feet could help them to; and as we did not trouble ourselves ether to the seaside, where they landed, and where their canoes lay
But their disaster was not at an end yet; for it blew a terrible stor froo off; nay, the storht, when the tide cae of the sea so high upon the shore that it required infinite toil to get theainst the beach Our ot little rest that night; but having refreshed themselves as well as they could, they resolved to es were fled, and see what posture they were in This necessarily led theht had been, and where they found several of the poor creatures not quite dead, and yet past recovering life; a sight disagreeable enough to generous ed by the law of battle to destroy his eneht in his ive any orders in this case; for their own savages, ere their servants, despatched these poor creatures with their hatchets
At length they came in view of the place where the es' army lay, where there appeared about a hundred still; their posture was generally sitting upon the ground, with their knees up towards theirdown upon the knees When our overnor ordered two muskets to be fired without ball, to alarht knohat to expect, whether they were still in heart to fight, or were so heartily beaten as to be discouraged, and so he eun, and saw the flash of the second, they started up upon their feet in the greatest consternation iinable; and as ourand yelling aith a kind of howling noise, which our men did not understand, and had never heard before; and thus they ran up the hills into the country
At first our men had one away to sea: but they did not then consider that this ain in such multitudes as not to be resisted, or, at least, to come so many and so often as would quite desolate the island, and starve the his wound kept alith them, proved the best counsellor in this case: his advice was, to take the advantage that offered, and step in between them and their boats, and so deprive theue the island
They consulted long about this; and so the wretches fly to the woods and live there desperate, and so they should have them to hunt like wild beasts, be afraid to stir out about their business, and have their plantations continually rifled, all their taoats destroyed, and, in short, be reduced to a life of continual distress
Will Atkins told them they had better have to do with a hundred men than with a hundred nations; that, as they must destroy their boats, so they must destroy the men, or be all of them destroyed themselves In a word, he showed them the necessity of it so plainly that they all came into it; so they went to work iether from a dead tree, they tried to set some of them on fire, but they were so wet that they would not burn; however, the fire so burned the upper part that it soon made them unfit for use at sea
When the Indians sahat they were about, so as near as they could to our men, kneeled down and cried, ”Oa, Oa, Warae, which none of the others understood anything of; but as they e noises, it was easy to understand they begged to have their boats spared, and that they would be gone, and never coain But our men were now satisfied that they had no way to preserve themselves, or to save their colony, but effectually to prevent any of these people fro upon this, that if even so ot back into their country to tell the story, the colony was undone; so that, letting them know that they should not have any mercy, they fell to ith their canoes, and destroyed every one that the stores raised a hideous cry in the woods, which our people heard plain enough, after which they ran about the island like distracted men, so that, in a word, our men did not really knohat at first to do with them Nor did the Spaniards, with all their prudence, consider that while they ood guard at the sah it is true they had driven away their cattle, and the Indians did not find out their main retreat, I mean my old castle at the hill, nor the cave in the valley, yet they found out my plantation at the bower, and pulled it all to pieces, and all the fences and planting about it; trod all the corn under foot, tore up the vines and grapes, being just then alh to theh our ht them upon all occasions, yet they were in no condition to pursue them, or hunt them up and down; for as they were too nile, so oursurrounded with their nuh they had bows, they had no arrows left, nor anythereat, and indeed deplorable; but, at the saht to very bad circuh their retreats were preserved, yet their provision was destroyed, and their harvest spoiled, and what to do, or which way to turn thee they had noas the stock of cattle they had in the valley by the cave, and sorew there, and the plantation of the three Englishmen Will Atkins and his co killed by an arrohich struck him on the side of his head, just under the temple, so that he never spoke more; and it was very remarkable that this was the sae slave with his hatchet, and who afterwards intended to have murdered the Spaniards
I looked upon their case to have been worse at this tirains of barley and rice, and got into themy corn, and my tame cattle; for now they had, as I may say, a hundred wolves upon the island, which would devour everything they could come at, yet could be hardly come at themselves
When they sahat their circu they concluded was, that they would, if possible, drive the savages up to the farther part of the island, south-west, that if any ht not find one another; then, that they would daily hunt and harass them, and kill as many of them as they could come at, till they had reduced their nu theive them corn, and teach them how to plant, and live upon their daily labour In order to do this, they so followed theuns, that in a few days, if any of theun at an Indian, if he did not hit hihtened were they that they kept out of sight farther and farther; till at last oursome of them, they kept up in the woods or hollow places so much, that it reduced them to the utmost misery for want of food; and many were afterwards found dead in the woods, without any hurt, absolutely starved to death
When our men found this, it made their hearts relent, and pity overnor; and he proposed, if possible, to take one of the him to understand what they o aht to soht be depended upon, to save their lives and do us no harm
It was so weak and half-starved, one of them was at last surprised and made a prisoner He was sullen at first, and would neither eat nor drink; but finding hiiven to hirew tractable, and caht old Friday to talk to him, who always told him how kind the others would be to theive theive satisfaction that they would keep in their own bounds, and not come beyond it to injure or prejudice others; and that they should have corn given theiven them for their present subsistence; and old Friday bade the fellow go and talk with the rest of his country theree immediately, they should be all destroyed
The poor wretches, thoroughly humbled, and reduced in number to about thirty-seven, closed with the proposal at the first offer, and begged to have solishmen, well armed, with three Indian slaves and old Friday, marched to the place where they were The three Indian slaves carried thee quantity of bread, some rice boiled up to cakes and dried in the sun, and three live goats; and they were ordered to go to the side of a hill, where they sat down, ate their provisions very thankfully, and were the ht of; for, except when they ca victuals and directions, they never came out of their bounds; and there they lived when I caht theoats, andbut wives in order for them soon to become a nation They were confined to a neck of land, surrounded with high rocks behind the plain towards the sea before theh, and it was very good and fruitful; about a th Our ht theave a them twelve hatchets and three or four knives; and there they lived, the most subjected, innocent creatures that ever were heard of
After this the colony enjoyed a perfect tranquillity with respect to the savages, till I came to revisit them, which was about two years after; not but that, now and then, soes came on shore for their triumphal, unnatural feasts; but as they were of several nations, and perhaps had never heard of those that came before, or the reason of it, they did not make any search or inquiry after their countrymen; and if they had, it would have been very hard to have found theiven a full account of all that happened to them till my return, at least that orth notice The Indians onderfully civilised by the them; but they forbid, on pain of death, any one of the Indians co to theain One thing was very rees to make wicker- work, or baskets, but they soon outdid their s in wicker-work, particularly baskets, sieves, bird-cages, cupboards, &c; as also chairs, stools, beds, couches, being very ingenious at such hen they were once put in the way of it
My co was a particular relief to these people, because we furnished them with knives, scissors, spades, shovels, pick-axes, and all things of that kind which they could want With the help of those tools they were so very handy that they came at last to build up their huts or houses very handso it up like basket-work all the way round This piece of ingenuity, although it looked very odd, was an exceeding good fence, as well against heat as against all sorts of verot the Indians to come and do the like for thelishmen's colonies, they looked at a distance as if they all lived like bees in a hive
As for Will Atkins, as now become a very industrious, useful, and sober fellow, he had made himself such a tent of basket-work as I believe was never seen; it was one hundred and twenty paces round on the outside, as I measured by my steps; the walls were as close worked as a basket, in panels or squares of thirty-two in nuh; in the middle was another not above twenty-two paces round, but built stronger, being octagon in its for posts; round the top of which he laid strong pieces, knit together ooden pins, froht rafters, joined together very well, though he had no nails, and only a few iron spikes, which he made himself, too, out of the old iron that I had left there Indeed, this felloed abundance of ingenuity in several things which he had no knowledge of: he e, with a pair of wooden bellows to blow the fire; he made himself charcoal for his work; and he forood anvil to has, but especially hooks, staples, and spikes, bolts and hinges
But to return to the house: after he had pitched the roof of his innermost tent, he worked it up between the rafters with basket-work, so fireniously with rice-straw, and over that a large leaf of a tree, which covered the top, that his house was as dry as if it had been tiled or slated He owned, indeed, that the savages had made the basket-work for him The outer circuit was covered as a lean-to all round this inner apartles to the top posts of the inner house, being about twenty feet distant, so that there was a space like a ithin the outer wicker-wall, and without the inner, near twenty feet wide
The inner place he partitioned off with the same wickerwork, but much fairer, and divided into six apartments, so that he had six rooms on a floor, and out of every one of these there was a door: first into the entry, or co into the main tent, another door into the main tent, and another door into the space or walk that was round it; so that as also divided into six equal parts, which served not only for a retreat, but to store up any necessaries which the fa up the whole circumference, what other apartments the outer circle had were thus ordered: As soon as you were in at the door of the outer circle you had a short passage straight before you to the door of the inner house; but on either side was a wicker partition and a door in it, by which you went first into a large roo, and through that into another not quite so long; so that in the outer circle were ten handsoh the apart rooms to the respective chae warehouses, or barns, or what you please to call theh one another, two on either hand of the passage, that led through the outer door to the inner tent Such a piece of basket-work, I believe, was never seen in the world, nor a house or tent so neatly contrived, reat bee-hive lived the three families, that is to say, Will Atkins and his companion; the third was killed, but his wife remained with three children, and the other tere not at all backward to give theher full share of everything, I rapes, &c, and when they killed a kid, or found a turtle on the shore; so that they all lived well enough; though it was true they were not so industrious as the other two, as has been observed already
One thing, however, cannot be oion, I do not know that there was anything of that kind a them; they often, indeed, put one another in mind that there was a God, by the very co by His nae wivesbeen married to Christians, as we must call them; for as they knew very little of God the into any discourse with their wives about a God, or to talk anything to theion
The utmost of all the improvement which I can say the wives had lish pretty well; and ht to speak English too, froh they at first spoke it in a very broken manner, like their mothers None of these children were above six years old when I came thither, for it was not e ladies over; they had all children, overned, quiet, laborious wohty observant, and subject to theirbut to be well instructed in the Christian religion, and to be legally ht about afterwards bythem