Volume II Part 6 (1/2)
”The inhabitants of this country are the miserablest people in the world.
The Hodmadods of Monomatapa, though a nasty people, yet for wealth are gentlemen to these; who have no houses, and skin garments, sheep, poultry, and fruits of the earth, ostrich eggs, etc., as the Hodmadods have: and setting aside their human shape, they differ but little from brutes. They are tall, straight-bodied, and thin, with small, long limbs.
They have great heads, round foreheads, and great brows. Their eye-lids are always half closed, to keep the flies out of their eyes; they being so troublesome here, that no fanning will keep them from coming to one's face; and without the a.s.sistance of both hands to keep them off, they will creep into one's nostrils, and mouth too, if the lips are not shut very close; so that from their infancy, being thus annoyed with these insects, they do never open their eyes as other people; and therefore they cannot see far, unless they hold up their heads, as if they were looking at somewhat over them.
”They have great bottle-noses, pretty full lips, and wide mouths. The two fore-teeth of their upper jaw are wanting in all of them, men and women, old and young; whether they draw them out, I know not: neither have they any beards. They are long-visaged, and of a very unpleasant aspect, having no one graceful feature in their faces. Their hair is black, short and curled, like that of the negroes; and not long and lank like the common Indians. The colour of their skins, both of their faces and the rest of their body, is coal-black, like that of the negroes of Guinea.*
(*Footnote. The natives of Hanover Bay, with whom we communicated, were not deprived of their front teeth, and wore their beards long; they also differed from the above description in having their hair long and curly.
Dampier may have been deceived in this respect, and from the use that they make of their hair, by twisting it up into a subst.i.tute for thread, they had probably cut it off close, which would give them the appearance of having woolly hair like the negro.)
”They have no sort of clothes, but a piece of the rind of a tree tied like a girdle about their waists, and a handful of long gra.s.s, or three or four small green boughs full of leaves, thrust under their girdle, to cover their nakedness.
”They have no houses, but lie in the open air without any covering; the earth being their bed, and the heaven their canopy. Whether they cohabit one man to one woman, or promiscuously, I know not; but they do live in companies, twenty or thirty men, women, and children together. Their only food is a small sort of fish, which they get by making weirs of stone across little coves or branches of the sea; every tide bringing in the small fish, the there leaving them for a prey to these people, who constantly attend there to search for them at low water. This small fry I take to be the top of their fishery: they have no instruments to catch great fish, should they come; and such seldom stay to be left behind at low water: nor could we catch any fish with our hooks and lines all the while we lay there. In other places at low water they seek for c.o.c.kles, mussels, and periwinkles. Of these sh.e.l.l-fish there are fewer still; so that their chief dependence is upon what the sea leaves in their wares; which, be it much or little, they gather up, and march to the places of their abode. There the old people that are not able to stir abroad by reason of their age, and the tender infants, wait their return; and what Providence has bestowed on them, they presently broil on the coals, and eat it in common. Sometimes they get as many fish as makes them a plentiful banquet; and at other times they scarce get every one a taste; but be it little or much that they get, every one has his part, as well the young and tender, the old and feeble, who are not able to go abroad, as the strong and l.u.s.ty. When they have eaten they lie down till the next low water, and then all that are able march out, be it night or day, rain or s.h.i.+ne, 'tis all one; they must attend the weirs, or else they must fast; for the earth affords them no food at all. There is neither herb, root, pulse, nor any sort of grain for them to eat, that we saw; nor any sort of bird or beast that they can catch, having no instruments wherewithal to do so.
”I did not perceive that they did wors.h.i.+p anything. These poor creatures have a sort of weapon to defend their weir, or fight with their enemies, if they have any that will interfere with their poor fishery. They did at first endeavour with their weapons to frighten us, who, lying ash.o.r.e, deterred them from one of their fis.h.i.+ng-places. Some of them had wooden swords, others had a sort of lances. The sword is a piece of wood shaped somewhat like a cutla.s.s.* The lance is a long straight pole, sharp at one end, and hardened afterwards by heat. I saw no iron, nor any sort of metal; therefore it is probable they use stone hatchets, as some Indians in America do, described in Chapter 4.
(*Footnote. Probably a boomerang. See volume 1.)
”How they get their fire I know not; but probably as Indians do, out of wood. I have seen the Indians of Bon-Airy do it, and have myself tried the experiment. They take a flat piece of wood that is pretty soft, and make a small dent in one side of it, then they take another hard, round stick, about the bigness of one's little finger, and sharpened at one end like a pencil, they put that sharp end in the hole or dent of the flat soft piece, and then rubbing or twirling the hard piece between the palm of their hands, they drill the soft piece till it smokes, and at last takes fire.
”These people speak somewhat through the throat; but we could not understand one word that they said. We anch.o.r.ed, as I said before, January the 5th, and seeing men walking on the sh.o.r.e, we presently sent a canoe to get some acquaintance with them; for we were in hopes to get some provision among them. But the inhabitants, seeing our boat coming, run away and hid themselves. We searched afterwards three days in hopes to find their houses, but found none; yet we saw many places where they had made fires. At last, being out of hopes to find their habitations, we searched no farther; but left a great many toys ash.o.r.e, in such places where we thought they would come. In all our search we found no water, but old wells on the sandy bays.
”At last we went over to the islands, and there we found a great many of the natives; I do believe there were forty on one island, men, women, and children. The men on our first coming ash.o.r.e, threatened us with their lances and swords; but they were frightened by firing one gun, which we fired purposely to scare them. The island was so small that they could not hide themselves; but they were much disordered at our landing, especially the women and children; for we went directly to their camp.
The l.u.s.tiest of the women s.n.a.t.c.hing up their infants ran away howling, and the little children run after squeaking and bawling; but the men stood still. Some of the women, and such people as could not go from us, lay still by a fire, making a doleful noise, as if we had been coming to devour them: but when they saw we did not intend to harm them, they were pretty quiet, and the rest that fled from us at our first coming, returned again. This their place of dwelling was only a fire, with a few boughs before it, set up on the side the winds was of.
”After we had been here a little while, the men began to be familiar, and we clothed some of them, designing to have some service of them for it; for we found some wells of water here, and intended to carry two or three barrels of it aboard. But it being somewhat troublesome to carry to the canoes, we thought to have made these men to have carried it for us, and therefore we gave them some old clothes; to one an old pair of breeches, to another a ragged s.h.i.+rt, to the third a jacket that was scarce worth owning; which yet would have been very acceptable at some places where we had been, and so we thought they might have been with these people. We put them on them, thinking that this finery would have brought them to work heartily for us; and our water being filled in small long barrels, about six gallons in each, which were made purposely to carry water in, we brought these our new servants to the wells, and put a barrel on each of their shoulders for them to carry to the canoe. But all the signs we could make were to no purpose, for they stood like statues, without motion, but grinned like so many monkeys, staring one upon another; for these poor creatures seem not accustomed to carry burdens; and I believe that one of our s.h.i.+p-boys of ten years old would carry as much as one of them. So we were forced to carry our water ourselves, and they very fairly put the clothes off again, and laid them down, as if clothes were only to work in. I did not perceive that they had any great liking to them at first, neither did they seem to admire anything that we had.
”At another time our canoe being among these islands seeking for game, espied a drove of these men swimming from one island to another; for they have no boats, canoes, or bark-logs. They took four of them, and brought them aboard; two of them were middle-aged, the other two were young men about eighteen or twenty years old. To these we gave boiled rice, and with it turtle and manatee boiled. They did greedily devour what we gave them, but took no notice of the s.h.i.+p, or any thing in it, and when they were set on land again, they ran away as fast as they could. At our first coming, before we were acquainted with them, or they with us, a company of them who lived on the main, came just against our s.h.i.+p, and standing on a pretty high bank, threatened us with their swords and lances, by shaking them at us: at last the captain ordered the drum to be beaten, which was done of a sudden with much vigour, purposely to scare the poor creatures. They hearing the noise, ran away as fast as they could drive; and when they ran away in haste, they would cry gurry, gurry, speaking deep in the throat. Those inhabitants also that live on the main would always run away from us; yet we took several of them. For, as I have already observed, they had such bad eyes, that they could not see us till we came close to them. We did always give them victuals, and let them go again, but the islanders, after our first time of being among them, did not stir for us.”*
(*Footnote. Dampier volume 1 page 464 et seq.)
At this anchorage we perceived very little rise and fall of tide, and the flood and ebb both set to the northward, this was also the case at our anchorage within the Lacepede Islands. At four o'clock the next morning a strong south-easterly breeze sprang up, and moderated again before we weighed; but no sooner were we under sail than it freshened again, and, at half-past five o'clock, blew so strong as to oblige our double reefing the topsails, which had not been done for many weeks before. At noon the wind fell, and was very calm, at which time our lat.i.tude observed was 17 degrees 36 minutes 38 seconds. The highest part of the land bore North 70 1/2 degrees East, south of which a sandy point, supposed to be Captain Baudin's Cape Boileau, bore South 87 degrees East; and a smoke, a little to the northward of the masthead extreme, bearing South 42 degrees East must be upon the land in the neighbourhood of Cape Latreille.
Soon after noon the breeze veered round by South to West-South-West, and enabled us to make some progress; at sunset we again anch.o.r.ed in thirteen fathoms, soft sand, at six miles from a sandy projection of the main, which we afterwards found to be the land called by Captain Baudin, Gantheaume Island; the name has therefore been given to the point, for there was no appearance of its being insulated. It bears a truly desolate appearance, being nothing but ridges of bare white sand, scantily crowned with a few shrubby bushes.
Behind Point Gantheaume the land appeared to be formed by downs of very white sand; and between this point and Cape Boileau is a bay, which at first, from the direction of the flood stream at the anchorage, was conjectured to be an inlet; but as the tide afterwards set to the Northward and North-East, it was concluded to be occasioned by the stream sweeping round the sh.o.r.es of the bay: according to the depth alongside there was a rise of ten feet; after high-water the ebb set between North 1/2 West and North-North-East, at the rate of a quarter to three quarters of a knot.
During the whole day the horizon was occupied by haze, and produced a very remarkable effect upon the land, which was so raised above the horizon by refraction that many distant objects became visible that could not otherwise have been seen. This mirage had been frequently observed by us on various parts of the coast, but never produced so extraordinary an effect as on the present occasion. The coastline appeared to be formed of high chalky cliffs, crowned by a narrow band of woody hillocks; and the land of Cape Villaret was so elevated as to be distinctly seen at the distance of forty miles, whereas two days afterwards, the weather being clear, it was not visible above the horizon for more than five leagues.
This state of the atmosphere caused a rapid evaporation during the day, and as the evening approached a very copious dew commenced falling, which by sunset was precipitated like a shower of rain.
The next morning the land was again enveloped in haze, but at seven o'clock it cleared off a little, and the coast was observed to trend round Point Gantheaume to the south-east, but as we had last evening seen it as far to the westward as South-West by South, we steered in the latter direction under the idea of there being no opening to the southward of the point, since the flood-tide flowed from it instead of towards it, as it naturally would have done had there been any inlet of consequence thereabout.
As usual, we had been surrounded by whales, and large flights of b.o.o.bies; one of the latter lighted upon the deck this afternoon, and was easily taken; it seemed to be the same bird (Peleca.n.u.s fiber) that frequents the reefs upon the north and north-eastern coasts. Between sunrise and midday our progress was much r.e.t.a.r.ded by light south-easterly winds. At noon we were in 17 degrees 51 minutes 45 seconds South: after which the sea-breeze set in from South-South-West and South-West, and we steered to the southward. The land was now visible considerably to the southward of Point Gantheaume, but of a very low and sandy character; and as we proceeded it came in sight to the South-South-West. At sunset we anch.o.r.ed about five or six miles to the north of Captain Baudin's Cape Villaret; the extreme, which was in sight a little without it, was doubtless his Cape Latouche-Treville. From Cape Villaret the land trended to the East-North-East, and was seen very nearly to join the sh.o.r.e at the back of Point Gantheaume.
The dew was precipitated as copiously this evening as the last, and the sun set in a very dense bank; but the night was throughout fine. We now began to experience a more considerable set of tide than we had found since rounding Cape Leveque, for the rate was as much as a knot and a half; but as the tides were neaped it only rose nine feet.
At an anchorage near this spot, in the year 1699, Captain Dampier remarks that the tide rose and fell five fathoms, and ran so strong that his nun-buoy would not watch: but the French expedition, at an anchorage a little to the southward, found the flood-tide to set South-South-East and to rise only nine feet, the moon being then three days past her full. All these particulars have been mentioned, since it is from the nature of the tides that Captain Dampier formed his hypothesis of the existence of either a strait or an opening between this and the Rosemary Islands; but from our experience it would appear more probable that these great tides are occasioned by the numerous inlets that intersect the coast between this and Cape Voltaire; a further examination, however, can only prove the real cause.
August 26.