Their Company, Originally 248 Men,
Was Now Reduced To 147, But Was Soon Still Farther Lessened By Losing
Company Of The Henry Frederick, Which Never Rejoined.
Waiting for that
ship in vain till the 12th March, they sailed to the island of Mocha on
the coast of Chili, in lat.
38 deg. 22' S. and six miles [twenty English]
from the continent. This island is remarkable by a high mountain in the
middle, which is cloven at the top, and whence a water-course descends
into the vale land at its foot. They here bartered knives and hatchets
with the natives for sheep, poultry, maize, bartulas,[76] and other
fruits. The town consisted of about fifty straw huts, where the Dutch
were regaled with a sour kind of drink, called cici, made of maiz
steeped in water, which is the favourite drink of the Chilese at their
feasts. Polygamy is much practised among these people, who buy as many
wives as they can afford to maintain; so that a man who has many
daughters, especially if they be handsome, is accounted rich. If one man
kill another, he is judged by the relations of the deceased, as they
have no laws or magistrates among them, so that the murderer may
sometimes buy off his punishment by giving a drinking-bout of cici.
Their cloathing is manufactured from the wool of a large kind of sheep,
which animal they also employ to carry burdens. They would not sell any
of these, but parted freely with another kind, not very different.
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