The Natives Of
This Island Seemed Well Disposed Towards Us; For, At Our First Coming,
They Made Signs To Us, As If Warning Us To Take Care Of Having Our
Throats Cut, Which We Then Paid No Attention To.[279]
[Footnote 279:
This circumstance is not easily understood, unless by the
natives are here meant negroes, as distinguished from the Moors, who
endeavoured to murder the English, probably at the instigation of the
Portuguese. - E.]
We set sail that same day from Pemba, being the 20th December, and by
midnight our ship got aground on the shoals of Melinda, or Pemba, which
we were not aware of, but got off again, by backing our sails, as the
wind was very moderate. Next morning we pursued and took three small
boats, called pangaias, which had their planks very slightly connected
together, while another boat was endeavouring to come off from the land
to give them notice to avoid us. In these boats there were above forty
persons, six or eight of whom being comparatively pale and fair, much
differing from the Moors, we thought to have been Portuguese; but being
asked, they shewed their backs all over with written characters; and
when we still insisted they were Portuguese, they said the Portuguese
were not circumcised as they were.[280] As we could not be satisfied of
their not being Portuguese, some of our mariners spoke to them about the
murder of our men, which seemed to put them in fear, and they talked
with each other in their own language, which made us suspect they were
meditating some desperate attempt.
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