the country, when, on coming
to an open place, a number of tall savages, none of them less than
eight feet high; came out from the brushwood as though to attack us. On
the neck of each giant sat one of the pygmies, who directed him in the
same way that a man would guide a charger. The pygmies then began to
let fly their arrows at us with great fury, by which Janstins was
wounded, and one of the men hit in the leg. We were all hard pressed,
so I ordered a volley to be fired, which killed one of the giants, so
that the others dragged the dead man into the wood, from which all
quickly disappeared. Being so far from the beach, and having a very
difficult path to travel, we determined to return to the ship and
report to Hartog what had occurred.

Hartog, upon learning what had befallen us, resolved to make no further
overtures of peace to these treacherous natives, who appeared to be
more like wild beasts than men, and who, by their conduct, had placed
themselves beyond all claim to consideration. It seemed that the
pygmies possessed a greater intelligence than the giants, whom they
used as ordinary men would use horses or beasts of burden. It was for
this reason that the little chief had attempted to drive Janstins into
the sea with his conch-shell hammer, regarding him as some smaller
species of giant whom he could easily frighten into obeying him.

During the afternoon some canoes came off in which were a number of
pygmies, but they made no attempt to come aboard of us, remaining, as
they thought, at a safe distance from the ship. In order to convince
them of the error of this, however, and to punish them for their
treachery of the morning, Hartog ordered our brass bow-chaser to be
loaded with grape, and fired amongst them, which caused great
consternation, and sent them back to their woods howling in terror,
taking their dead and wounded with them.

Hartog was determined to explore the range of mountains which we could
see not far distant from the coast, in order to ascertain the truth, or
otherwise, of the existence of rubies in the valleys as set forth in
Marco Polo's account of this country. Although we had carefully looked
for these gems among the ornaments worn by the pygmies, we had not seen
any, from which we concluded that the men spoken of by Polo as having
procured the rubies must have been of a different race, or possibly his
own sailors. Toward evening we observed a large bird in the sky, which
Hartog, wit