Now, Whether They Tould Us This Out Of
Pollicy, Least We Should Not Come To Them Ffirst, & So Be Deprived Of What
They Thought To Gett From Us [I Know Not].
In that you may see that the
envy and envy raigns every where amongst poore barbarous wild people as att
Courts.
They made us a mapp of what we could not see, because the time was
nigh to reape among the bustards and Ducks. As we came to the place where
these oats growes (they grow in many places), you would think it strang to
see the great number of ffowles, that are so fatt by eating of this graine
that heardly they will move from it. I have seene a wildman killing 3 ducks
at once with one arrow. It is an ordinary thing to see five [or] six
hundred swans together. I must professe I wondred that the winter there was
so cold, when the sand boyles att the watter side for the extreame heate of
the Sun. I putt some eggs in that sand, and leave them halfe an houre; the
eggs weare as hard as stones. We passed that summer quietly, coasting the
seaside, and as the cold began, we prevented the Ice. We have the
commoditie of the river to carry our things in our boats to the best place,
where weare most bests.
This is a wandring nation, and containeth a vaste countrey. In winter they
live in the land for the hunting sake, and in summer by the watter for
fishing. They never are many together, ffor feare of wronging one another.
They are of a good nature, & not great whore masters, having but one wife,
and are [more] satisfied then any others that I knewed. They cloath
themselves all over with castors' skins in winter, in summer of staggs'
skins. They are the best huntsmen of all America, and scorns to catch a
castor in a trappe. The circumjacent nations goe all naked when the season
permitts it. But this have more modestie, ffor they putt a piece of copper
made like a finger of a glove, which they use before their nature. They
have the same tenents as the nation of the beefe, and their apparell from
topp to toe. The women are tender and delicat, and takes as much paines as
slaves. They are of more acute wits then the men, ffor the men are fools,
but diligent about their worke. They kill not the yong castors, but leave
them in the watter, being that they are sure that they will take him
againe, which no other nation doth. They burne not their prisoners, but
knock them in the head, or slain them with arrows, saying it's not decent
for men to be so cruell. They have a stone of Turquois from the nation of
the buff and beefe, with whome they had warrs. They pollish them, and give
them the forme of pearle, long, flatt, round, and [hang] them att their
nose.
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