PAGE 28
Sir Francis Drake
by
The kingdom thus offered, though of no further value to him than as it furnished him with present necessaries, Drake thought it not prudent to refuse; and, therefore, took possession of it in the name of queen Elizabeth, not without ardent wishes, that this acquisition might have been of use to his native country, and that so mild and innocent a people might have been united to the church of Christ.
The kingdom being thus consigned, and the grand affair at an end, the common people left their king and his domesticks with Drake, and dispersed themselves over the camp; and when they saw any one that pleased them by his appearance more than the rest, they tore their flesh, and vented their outcries as before, in token of reverence and admiration.
They then proceeded to show them their wounds and diseases, in hopes of a miraculous and instantaneous cure; to which the English, to benefit and undeceive them at the same time, applied such remedies as they used on the like occasions.
They were now grown confident and familiar, and came down to the camp every day, repeating their ceremonies and sacrifices, till they were more fully informed how disagreeable they were to those whose favour they were so studious of obtaining: they then visited them without adoration, indeed, but with a curiosity so ardent, that it left them no leisure to provide the necessaries of life, with which the English were, therefore, obliged to supply them.
They had then sufficient opportunity to remark the customs and dispositions of these new allies, whom they found tractable and benevolent, strong of body, far beyond the English, yet unfurnished with weapons, either for assault or defence, their bows being too weak for any thing but sport. Their dexterity in taking fish was such, that, if they saw them so near the shore that they could come to them without swimming, they never missed them.
The same curiosity that had brought them in such crowds to the shore, now induced Drake, and some of his company, to travel up into the country, which they found, at some distance from the coast, very fruitful, filled with large deer, and abounding with a peculiar kind of conies, smaller than ours, with tails like that of a rat, and paws such as those of a mole; they have bags under their chin, in which they carry provisions to their young.
The houses of the inhabitants are round holes dug in the ground, from the brink of which they raise rafters, or piles, shelving towards the middle, where they all meet, and are crammed together; they lie upon rushes, with the fire in the midst, and let the smoke fly out at the door.
The men are generally naked; but the women make a kind of petticoat of bulrushes, which they comb like hemp, and throw the skin of a deer over their shoulders. They are very modest, tractable, and obedient to their husbands.
Such is the condition of this people; and not very different is, perhaps, the state of the greatest part of mankind. Whether more enlightened nations ought to look upon them with pity, as less happy than themselves, some skepticks have made, very unnecessarily, a difficulty of determining. More, they say, is lost by the perplexities than gained by the instruction of science; we enlarge our vices with our knowledge, and multiply our wants with our attainments, and the happiness of life is better secured by the ignorance of vice, than by the knowledge of virtue.
The fallacy by which such reasoners have imposed upon themselves, seems to arise from the comparison which they make, not between two men equally inclined to apply the means of happiness in their power to the end for which providence conferred them, but furnished in unequal proportions with the means of happiness, which is the true state of savage and polished nations; but between two men, of which he to whom providence has been most bountiful, destroys the blessings by negligence or obstinate misuse; while the other, steady, diligent, and virtuous, employs his abilities and conveniences to their proper end. The question is not, whether a good Indian or bad Englishman be most happy; but, which state is most desirable, supposing virtue and reason the same in both.