him justice in restoring his circumstances, or in furtheremploying him, he quitted their service, and was employed by thosecalled separate traders, and being afterwards out of employ therealso, traded on his own account; when, passing unwarily into one of thecompany's settlements, he was either betrayed into the hands of some ofthe natives, or, somehow or other, was surprised by them. However, asthey did not kill him, he found means to escape from them at that time,and fled to another nation of the natives, who, being enemies to theother, entertained him friendly, and with them he lived some time; butnot liking his quarters or his company, he fled again, and several timeschanged his landlords: sometimes was carried by force, sometimeshurried by fear, as circumstances altered with him (the variety of whichdeserves a history by itself), till at last he had wandered beyond allpossibility of return, and had taken up his abode where we found him,where he was well received by the petty king of the tribe he lived with;and he, in return, instructed them how to value the product of theirlabour, and on what terms to trade with those negroes who came up tothem for teeth.
As he was naked, and had no clothes, so he was naked of arms for hisdefence, having neither gun, sword, staff, or any instrument of warabout him, no, not to guard himself against the attacks of a wild beast,of which the country was very full. We asked him how he came to be soentirely abandoned of all concern for his safety? He answered, that tohim, that had so often wished for death, life was not worth defending;and that, as he was entirely at the mercy of the negroes, they had muchthe more confidence in him, seeing he had no weapons to hurt them. Asfor wild beasts, he was not much concerned about that, for he scarceever went from his hut; but if he did, the negro king and his men wentall with him, and they were all armed with bows and arrows, and lances,with which they would kill any of the ravenous creatures, lions aswell as others; but that they seldom came abroad in the day; and ifthe negroes wander anywhere in the night, they always build a hut forthemselves, and make a fire at the door of it, which is guard enough.
We inquired of him what we should next do towards getting to theseaside. He told us we were about one hundred and twenty English leaguesfrom the coast, where almost all the European settlements and factorieswere, and which is called the Gold Coast; but that there were so manydifferent nations of negroes in the way, that it was ten to one ifwe were not either fought with continually, or starved for want ofprovisions; but that there were two other ways to go, which, if hehad had any company to go with him, he had often contrived to make hisescape by. The one was to travel full west, which, though it was fartherto go, yet was not so full of people, and the people we should findwould be so much the civiller to us, or be so much the easier to fightwith; or that the other way was, if possible, to get to the Rio Grande,and go down the stream in canoes. We told him, that was the way we hadresolved on before we met with him; but then he told us there was aprodigious desert to go over, and as prodigious woods to go through,before we came to it, and that both together were at least twenty days'march for us, travel as hard as we could.
We asked him if there were no horses in the country, or asses, or evenbullocks or buffaloes, to make use of in such a journey, and we showedhim ours, of which we had but three left. He said no, all the countrydid not afford anything of that kind.
He told us that in this great wood there were immense numbers ofelephants; and upon the desert, great multitudes of lions, lynxes,tigers, leopards, &c.; and that it was to that wood and that desert thatthe negroes went to get elephants' teeth, where they never failed tofind a great number.
We inquired still more, and particularly the way to the Gold Coast, andif there were no rivers to ease us in our carriage; and told him, as tothe negroes fighting with us, we were not much concerned at that; norwere we afraid of starving, for if they had any victuals among them, wewould have our share of it; and, therefore, if he would venture to showus the way, we would venture to go; and as for himself, we told him wewould live and die together--there should not a man of us stir from him.
He told us, with all his heart, if we resolved it, and would venture, wemight be assured he would take his fate with us, and he would endeavourto guide us in such a way as we should meet with some friendly savageswho would use us well, and perhaps stand by us against some others, whowere less tractable; so, in a word, we all resolved to go full south forthe Gold Coast.
The next morning he came to us again, and being all met in council, aswe may call it, he began to talk very seriously with us, that sincewe were now come, after a long journey, to a view of the end of ourtroubles, and had been so obliging to him as to offer to carry him withus, he had been all night revolving in his mind what he and we all mightdo to make ourselves some amends for all our sorrows; and first, hesaid, he was to let me know that we were just then in one of the richestparts of the world, though it was really otherwise but a desolate,disconsolate wilderness; "for," says he, "there is not a river but runsgold--not a desert but without ploughing bears a crop of ivory. Whatmines of gold, what immense stores of gold, those mountains may contain,from whence these rivers come, or the shores which these waters runby, we know not, but may imagine that they must be inconceivably rich,seeing so much is washed down the stream by the water washing thesides of the land, that the quantity suffices all the traders which theEuropean world send thither." We asked him how far they went for it,seeing the ships only trade upon the coast. He told us that the negroeson the coast search the rivers up for the length of 150 or 200 miles,and would be out a month, or two, or three at a time, and always comehome sufficiently rewarded; "but," says he, "they never come thus far,and yet hereabouts is as much gold as there." Upon this he told us thathe believed he might have gotten a hundred pounds' weight of gold sincehe came thither, if he had employed himself to look and work for it; butas he knew not what to do with it, and had long since despaired of beingever delivered from the misery he was in, he had entirely omitted it."For what advantage had it been to me," said he, "or what richer hadI been, if I had a ton of gold dust, and lay and wallowed in it? Therichness of it," said he, "would not give me one moment's felicity, norrelieve me in the present exigency. Nay," says he, "as you all see, itwould not buy me clothes to cover me, or a drop of drink to save me fromperishing. It is of no value here," says he; "there are several peopleamong these huts that would weigh gold against a few glass beads ora cockle-shell, and give you a handful of gold-dust for a handfulof cowries." N.B.--These are little shells which our children callblackamoors' teeth.
When he had said thus he pulled out a piece of an earthen pot baked hardin the sun. "Here," says he, "is some of the dirt of this country, andif I would I could have got a great deal more;" and, showing it to us,I believe there was in it between two and three pounds weight ofgold-dust, of the same kind and colour with that we had gotten already,as before. After we had looked at it a while, he told us, smiling, wewere his deliverers, and all he had, as well as his life, was ours;and therefore, as this would be of value to us when we came to our owncountry, so he desired we would accept of it among us; and that was theonly time that he had repented that he had picked up no more of it.
I spoke for him, as his interpreter, to my comrades, and in their namesthanked him; but, speaking to them in Portuguese, I desired them todefer the acceptance of his kindness to the next morning; and so I did,telling him we would further talk of this part in the morning; so weparted for that time.
When he was gone I found they were all wonderfully affected withhis discourse, and with the generosity of his temper, as well asthe magnificence of his present, which in another place had beenextraordinary. Upon the whole, not to detain you with circumstances, weagreed that, seeing he was now one of our number, and that as we were arelief to him in carrying him out of the dismal condition he was in, sohe was equally a relief to us, in being our guide through the rest ofthe country, our interpreter with the natives, and our director how tomanage with the savages, and how to enrich ourselves with the wealthof the country; that, therefore, we would put his gold among our com
monstock, and every one should give him as much as would make his up justas much as any single share of our own, and for the future we would takeour lot together, taking his solemn engagement to us, as we had beforeone to another, that we would not conceal the least grain of gold wefound one from another.
In the next conference we acquainted him with the adventures of theGolden River, and how we had shared what we got there, so that every manhad a larger stock than he for his share; that, therefore, instead oftaking any from him, we had resolved every one to add a little to him.He appeared very glad that we had met with such good success, but wouldnot take a grain from us, till at last, pressing him very hard, he toldus, that then he would take it thus:--that, when we came to get anymore, he would have so much out of the first as should make him even,and then we would go on as equal