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 shine, '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 worship 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 ashore,
deterred them from one of their fishing-places. Some of them had wooden
swords, others had a sort of lances. The sword is a piece of wood shaped
somewhat like a cutlass.* 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 anchored, as I said before,
January the 5th, and seeing men walking on the shore, 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 ashore, in such places
where we thought they would come. In all our search we found no water,
but o