y could of them
by signs, what nations were this way, and that way, and were told of
several fierce and terrible people that lived almost every way, who, as
they made known by signs to them, used to eat men; but, as for
themselves, they said they never ate men or women, except only such as
they took in the wars; and then they owned they made a great feast, and
ate their prisoners.

The Englishmen inquired when they had had a feast of that kind; and they
told them about two moons ago, pointing to the moon and to two fingers;
and that their great king had two hundred prisoners now, which he had
taken in his war, and they were feeding them to make them fat for the
next feast. The Englishmen seemed mighty desirous of seeing those
prisoners; but the others mistaking them, thought they were desirous to
have some of them to carry away for their own eating. So they beckoned
to them, pointing to the setting of the sun, and then to the rising;
which was to signify that the next morning at sunrising they would bring
some for them; and accordingly the next morning they brought down five
women and eleven men, and gave them to the Englishmen to carry with them
on their voyage, just as we would bring so many cows and oxen down to a
seaport town to victual a ship.

As brutish and barbarous as these fellows were at home, their stomachs
turned at this sight, and they did not know what to do. To refuse the
prisoners would have been the highest affront to the savage gentry that
could be offered them, and what to do with them they knew not. However,
after some debate, they resolved to accept of them: and, in return, they
gave the savages that brought them one of their hatchets, an old key, a
knife, and six or seven of their bullets; which, though they did not
understand their use, they seemed particularly pleased with; and then
tying the poor creatures' hands behind them, they dragged the prisoners
into the boat for our men.

The Englishmen were obliged to come away as soon as they had them, or
else they that gave them this noble present would certainly have expected
that they should have gone to work with them, have killed two or three of
them the next morning, and perhaps have invited the donors to dinner. But
having taken their leave, with all the respect and thanks that could well
pass between people, where on either side they understood not one word
they could say, they put off with their boat, and came back towards the
first i