not go less than twenty or twenty-five Englishmiles a day, and the river continuing to be much of the same breadthand very deep all the way, till on the tenth day we came to anothercataract; for a ridge of high hills crossing the whole channel of theriver, the water came tumbling down the rocks from one stage to anotherin a strange manner, so that it was a continued link of cataracts fromone to another, in the manner of a cascade, only that the falls weresometimes a quarter of a mile from one another, and the noise confusedand frightful.
We thought our voyaging was at a full stop now; but three of us, witha couple of our negroes, mounting the hills another way, to view thecourse of the river, we found a fair channel again after about half amile's march, and that it was like to hold us a good way further. Sowe set all hands to work, unloaded our cargo, and hauled our canoes onshore, to see if we could carry them.
Upon examination we found that they were very heavy; but our carpenters,spending but one day's work upon them, hewed away so much of the timberfrom their outsides as reduced them very much, and yet they were as fitto swim as before. When this was done, ten men with poles took up oneof the canoes and made nothing to carry it. So we ordered twenty men toeach canoe, that one ten might relieve the other; and thus we carriedall our canoes, and launched them into the water again, and then fetchedour luggage and loaded it all again into the canoes, and all in anafternoon; and the next morning early we moved forward again. When wehad towed about four days more, our gunner, who was our pilot, began toobserve that we did not keep our right course so exactly as we ought,the river winding away a little towards the north, and gave us noticeof it accordingly. However, we were not willing to lose the advantage ofwater-carriage, at least not till we were forced to it; so we jogged on,and the river served us for about threescore miles further; but thenwe found it grew very small and shallow, having passed the mouths ofseveral little brooks or rivulets which came into it; and at length itbecame but a brook itself.
We towed up as far as ever our boats would swim, and we went two daysthe farther--having been about twelve days in this last part of theriver--by lightening the boats and taking our luggage out, which we madethe negroes carry, being willing to ease ourselves as long as we could;but at the end of these two days, in short, there was not water enoughto swim a London wherry.
We now set forward wholly by land, and without any expectation of morewater-carriage. All our concern for more water was to be sure to have asupply for our drinking; and therefore upon every hill that we came nearwe clambered up to the highest part to see the country before us, andto make the best judgment we could which way to go to keep the lowestgrounds, and as near some stream of water as we could.
The country held verdant, well grown with trees, and spread with riversand brooks, and tolerably well with inhabitants, for about thirty days'march after our leaving the canoes, during which time things went prettywell with us; we did not tie ourselves down when to march and when tohalt, but ordered those things as our convenience and the health andease of our people, as well our servants as ourselves, required.
About the middle of this march we came into a low and plain country,in which we perceived a greater number of inhabitants than in any othercountry we had gone through; but that which was worse for us, we foundthem a fierce, barbarous, treacherous people, and who at first lookedupon us as robbers, and gathered themselves in numbers to attack us.
Our men were terrified at them at first, and began to discover anunusual fear, and even our black prince seemed in a great deal ofconfusion; but I smiled at him, and showing him some of our guns, Iasked him if he thought that which killed the spotted cat (for so theycalled the leopard in their language) could not make a thousand of thosenaked creatures die at one blow? Then he laughed, and said, yes, hebelieved it would. "Well, then," said I, "tell your men not to be afraidof these people, for we shall soon give them a taste of what we can doif they pretend to meddle with us." However, we considered we were inthe middle of a vast country, and we knew not what numbers of peopleand nations we might be surrounded with, and, above all, we knew not howmuch we might stand in need of the friendship of these that we were nowamong, so that we ordered the negroes to try all the methods they couldto make them friends.
Accordingly the two men who had gotten bows and arrows, and two moreto whom we gave the prince's two fine lances, went foremost, with fivemore, having long poles in their hands; and after them ten of our menadvanced toward the negro town that was next to us, and we all stoodready to succour them if there should be occasion.
When they came pretty near their houses our negroes hallooed in theirscreaming way, and called to them as loud as they could. Upon theircalling, some of the men came out and answered, and immediately afterthe whole town, men, women, and children, appeared; our negroes, withtheir long poles, went forward a little, and stuck them all in theground, and left them, which in their country was a signal of peace, butthe other did not understand the meaning of that. Then the two men withbows laid down their bows and arrows, went forward unarmed, and madesigns of peace to them, which at last the other began to understand; sotwo of their men laid down their bows and arrows, and came towards them.Our men made all the signs of friendship to them that they could thinkof, putting their hands up to their mouths as a sign that they wantedprovisions to eat; and the other pretended to be pleased and friendly,and went back to their fellows and talked with them a while, and theycame forward again, and made signs that they would bring some provisionsto them before the sun set; and so our men came back again very wellsatisfied for that time.
But an hour before sunset our men went to them again, just in the sameposture as before, and they came according to their appointment, andbrought deer's flesh, roots, and the same kind of corn, like rice, whichI mentioned above; and our negroes, being furnished with such toys asour cutler had contrived, gave them some of them, which they seemedinfinitely pleased with, and promised to bring more provisions the nextday.
Accordingly the next day they came again, but our men perceived theywere more in number by a great many than before. However, having sentout ten men with firearms to stand ready, and our whole army being inview also, we were not much surprised; nor was the treachery of theenemy so cunningly ordered as in other cases, for they might havesurrounded our negroes, which were but nine, under a show of peace; butwhen they saw our men advance almost as far as the place where they werethe day before, the rogues snatched up their bows and arrows and camerunning upon our men like so many furies, at which our ten men calledto the negroes to come back to them, which they did with speed enoughat the first word, and stood all behind our men. As they fled, the otheradvanced, and let fly near a hundred of their arrows at them, by whichtwo of our negroes were wounded, and one we thought had been killed.When they came to the five poles that our men had stuck in the ground,they stood still awhile, and gathering about the poles, looked at them,and handled them, as wondering what they meant. We then, who were drawnup behind all, sent one of our number to our ten men to bid them fireamong them while they stood so thick, and to put some small shot intotheir guns besides the ordinary charge, and to tell them that we wouldbe up with them immediately.
Accordingly they made ready; but by the time they were ready to fire,the black army had left their wandering about the poles, and began tostir as if they would come on, though seeing more men stand at somedistance behind our negroes, they could not tell what to make of us;but if they did not understand us before, they understood us lessafterwards, for as soon as ever our men found them to begin to moveforward they fired among the thickest of them, being about the distanceof 120 yards, as near as we could guess.
It is impossible to express the fright, the screaming and yellingof those wretches upon this first volley. We killed six of them, andwounded eleven or twelve, I mean as we knew of; for, as they stoodthick, and the small shot, as we called it, scattered among them, we hadreason to believe we wounded more that stood farther off, for our smallshot was made of bits of lead and bits of iron, heads of
nails, and suchthings as our diligent artificer, the cutler, helped us to.
As to those that were killed and wounded, the other frighted creatureswere under the greatest amazement in the world, to think what shouldhurt them, for they could see nothing but holes made in their bodiesthey knew not how. Then the fire and noise amazed all their women andchildren, and frighted them out of their wits, so that they ran staringand howling about like mad creatures.
However, all this did not make them fly, which was what we wanted, nordid we find any of them die as it were with fear, as at first; so weresolved upon a second volley, and then to advance as we did before.Whereupon our reserved men advancing, we resolved to fire only three menat a time, and move forward like an army firing in platoon; so, beingall in a line, we fired, first three on the right, then three on theleft, and so on; and every time we killed or wounded some of them, butstill they did not fly, and yet they were so frighted that