Then Our Pinnace Came On
Board And Took In More Wares, Telling Us That They Would Go To A Place
Where the Primrose[210] was, and had received much gold in the first
voyage to these parts; but being in
Fear of a brigantine that was then
on the coast, we weighed anchor and followed them, leaving the Trinity
about four leagues from us. We accordingly rode at anchor opposite that
town, where Martine, by his own desire and with the assent of some of
the commissioners in the pinnace, went on shore to the town, and thence
John Berin went to trade at another town three miles father on. The town
is called Samma or Samua, which and Sammaterra are the two first towns
to the N.E. of Cape Three-points, where we traded for gold.
[Footnote 210: This was one of the ships in the former voyage under
Windham. - E.]
Having continued the course of the voyage as described by the
before-mentioned pilot, I will now say something of the country and
people, and of such things as are brought from thence[211].
[Footnote 211: These subsequent notices seem subjoined by Richard Eden,
the original publisher. - E.]
They brought home in this voyage, 400 pounds weight and odd of
gold[212], twenty-two carats and one grain fine. Also 36 buts of
_grains_, or Guinea pepper, and about 250 elephants teeth of different
sizes. Some of these I saw and measured, which were nine spans in length
measured along the crook, and some were as thick as a mans thigh above
the knee, weighing 90 pounds each, though some are said to have been
seen weighing 125 pounds. There were some called the teeth of calves, of
one, two, or three years old, measuring one and a-half, two, or three
feet, according to the age of the beast. These great teeth or tusks
grow in the upper jaw downwards, and not upwards from the lower jaw, as
erroneously represented by some painters and _arras_ workers. In this
voyage they brought home the head of an elephant of such huge bigness
that the bones or cranium only, without the tusks or lower jaw, weighed
about two hundred pounds, and was as much as I could well lift from the
ground. So that, considering also the weight of the two great tusks and
the under jaw, with the lesser teeth, the tongue, the great hanging
ears, the long big snout or trunk, with all the flesh, brains, and skin,
and other parts belonging to the head, it could not in my opinion weigh
less than five hundred weight. This head has been seen by many in the
house of the worthy merchant Sir Andrew Judde, where I saw it with my
bodily eyes, and contemplated with those of my mind, admiring the
cunning and wisdom of the work-master, without which consideration such
strange and wonderful things are only curiosities, not profitable
subjects of contemplation.
[Footnote 212:
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