A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 12 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 760 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 12.

A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 12 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 760 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 12.

The next morning he sent off a greater quantity of stock than we had ever procured in one day before; it consisted of forty-eight hogs and pigs, four dozen of fowls, with bread-fruit, bananas, apples, and cocoa-nuts, almost without number.

On the 20th, we continued to trade with good success, but in the afternoon it was discovered that Francis Pinckney, one of the seamen, had drawn the cleats to which the main sheet was belayed, and, after stealing the spikes, thrown them overboard.  Having secured the offender, I called all the people together upon the deck, and after taking some pains to explain his crime, with all its aggravations, I ordered that he should be whipt with nettles, while he ran the gauntlet thrice round the deck:  My rhetoric, however, had very little effect, for most of the crew being equally criminal with himself, he was handled so tenderly, that others were rather encouraged to repeat the offence by the hope of impunity, than deterred by the fear of punishment.  To preserve the ship, therefore, from being pulled to pieces, and the price of refreshments from being raised so high as soon to exhaust our articles of trade, I ordered that no man except the wooders and waterers, with their guard, should be permitted to go on shore.

On the 21st, the queen came again on board, and brought several large hogs as a present, for which, as usual, she would accept of no return.  When she was about to leave the ship, she expressed a desire that I should go on shore with her, to which I consented, taking several of the officers with me.  When we arrived at her house, she made us all sit down, and taking off my hat, she tied to it a bunch or tuft of feathers of various colours, such as I had seen no person on shore wear but herself, which produced by no means a disagreeable effect.  She also tied round my hat, and the hats of those who were with me, wreaths of braided or plaited hair, and gave us to understand that both the hair and workmanship were her own:  She also presented us with some matts, that were very curiously wrought.  In the evening she accompanied us back to the beach, and when we were getting into the boat, she put on board a fine large sow, big with young, and a great quantity of fruit.  As we were parting, I made signs that I should quit the island in seven days:  She immediately comprehended my meaning, and made signs that I should stay twenty days; that I should go two days journey into the country, stay there a few days, bring down plenty of hogs and poultry, and after that leave the island.  I again made signs, that I must go in seven days; upon which she burst into tears, and it was not without great difficulty that she was pacified.

The next morning, the gunner sent off no less than twenty hogs, with great plenty of fruit.  Our decks were now quite full of hogs and poultry, of which we killed only the small ones, and kept the other for sea-stores; we found, however, to our great mortification, that neither the fowls nor the hogs could, without great difficulty, be brought to eat any thing but fruit, which made it necessary to kill them faster than we should otherwise have done; two, however, a boar and a sow, were brought alive to England, of which I made a present to Mr Stephens, secretary to the Admiralty; the sow afterwards died in pigging, but the boar was alive at the date of this publication.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 12 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.