t it was with
much difficulty that we kept ourselves from being insulted by them
several ways. We were in a small river of this country, within a few
leagues of its utmost limits northward; and by our boat we coasted north-
east to the point of land which opens the great bay of Tonquin; and it
was in this beating up along the shore that we discovered we were
surrounded with enemies. The people we were among were the most
barbarous of all the inhabitants of the coast; and among other customs
they have this one: that if any vessel has the misfortune to be
shipwrecked upon their coast, they make the men all prisoners or slaves;
and it was not long before we found a spice of their kindness this way,
on the occasion following.

I have observed above that our ship sprung a leak at sea, and that we
could not find it out; and it happened that, as I have said, it was
stopped unexpectedly, on the eve of our being pursued by the Dutch and
English ships in the bay of Siam; yet, as we did not find the ship so
perfectly tight and sound as we desired, we resolved while we were at
this place to lay her on shore, and clean her bottom, and, if possible,
to find out where the leaks were. Accordingly, having lightened the
ship, and brought all our guns and other movables to one side, we tried
to bring her down, that we might come at her bottom; but, on second
thoughts, we did not care to lay her on dry ground, neither could we find
out a proper place for it.

CHAPTER XII--THE CARPENTER'S WHIMSICAL CONTRIVANCE

The inhabitants came wondering down the shore to look at us; and seeing
the ship lie down on one side in such a manner, and heeling in towards
the shore, and not seeing our men, who were at work on her bottom with
stages, and with their boats on the off-side, they presently concluded
that the ship was cast away, and lay fast on the ground. On this
supposition they came about us in two or three hours' time with ten or
twelve large boats, having some of them eight, some ten men in a boat,
intending, no doubt, to have come on board and plundered the ship, and if
they found us there, to have carried us away for slaves.

When they came up to the ship, and began to row round her, they
discovered us all hard at work on the outside of the ship's bottom and
side, washing, and graving, and stopping, as every seafaring man knows
how. They stood for a while gazing at us, and we, who were a little
surprised, could not imagine wha