1 a hive; and as for Will Atkins, who was now be come a very induftrious, neceffary, and fober fellow, he had made himfelf fuch a tent of basket-work, as I believe was never feen. It was 120 paces round on the outside, as I measured by my steps; the walls were as clofe worked as a basket, in pannels or fquares, thirty-two in number, and very strong, standing about feven feet high: in the middle was another not above 22 paces round, but built ftronger, being eight fquare in its form, and in the eight corners stood eight very strong posts, round the top of which he laid ftrong pieces, joined together with wooden pins, from which he raised a pyramid before the roof of eight rafters, very handsome, I affure you, and joined together very well, though he had no nails, and only a few iron fpikes, which he had made himself too, out of the old iron that I had left there; and, indeed, this fellow fhewed abundance of ingenuity in feveral things which he had no knowledge of; he made himself a forge, with a pair of wooden bellows to blow the fire; he made himself charcoal for his work, and he formed out of one of the iron crows a middling good anvil to hammer upon; in this manner he made many things, but especially hooks, ftaples and fpikes, bolts and hinges. But to return to the houfe; after he pitched the roof of his innermoft tent, he worked it up between the rafters with basket-work, fo firm, and thatched that over again fo ingenioufly with rice ftraw, and over that a large leaf of a tree, which covered the top, that his house was as dry as if it had been tiled or flated. Indeed he owned that the favages made the basket work for him. The The outer circuit was covered, as a lean-to, all round this inner apartment, and long rafters lay from the 32 angles to the top posts of the inner houfe, being about twenty feet diftant; so that there was a space like a walk within the outer wicker-wall, and without the inner, near twenty feet wide. The inner place he partitioned off with the fame wicker-work, but much fairer, and divided into fix apartments, for that he had fix rooms on a floor, and out of every one of these there was a door; first, into the entry, or coming into the main tent; and another door into the space or walk that was round it; fo that this walk was alfo divided into fix equal parts, which ferved not only for a retreat, but to ftore up any neceffaries which the family had occafion for. These fix spaces not taking up the whole circumference, what other apartments the outer circle had, were thus ordered: as foon as you were in at the door of the outer circle, you had a fhort paffage straight before you to the door of the inner houfe; but on either fide was a wicker partition, and a door in it, by which you went, firft, into a large room or fore-house, 20 feet wide, and about 30 feet long, and through that into another not quite fo long: fo that in the outer circle were ten handfome rooms, fix of which were only to be come at through the apartments of the inner tent, and ferved as closets or retired rooms to the refpective chambers of the inner circle; and four large warehouses or barns, or what you please to call them, which went in through one another, two on either hand of the paffage that led through the outer door to the inner tent. Such Such a piece of basket-work, I believe, was never feen in the world; nor an house or tent fo neatly contrived, much lefs fo built in this great bee-hive lived the three families; that is to fay, Will Atkins, and his companions; the third was killed, but his wife remained with three children; for fhe was, it feems, big with child when he died; and the other two were not at all backward to give the widow her full fhare of every thing, I mean, as to their corn, milk, grapes, &c. and when they killed a kid, or found a turtle on the fhore; fo that they all lived well enough, though it was true, they were not fo induftrious as the other two, as has been obferved already. One thing, however, cannot be omitted, viz. that, as for religion, I don't know that there was any thing of that kind among them; they pretty often, indeed, put one another in mind, that there was a GOD, by the very common method of feamen, viz. fwearing by his name; nor were their poor, ignorant favage wives much the better for having been married to Chriftians, as we must call them; for as they knew very little of GOD themselves, fo they were utterly incapable of entering into any discourse with their wives about a GOD, or to talk any thing to them concerning religion. The utmost of all the improvement which I can say the wives had made from them, was, that they had taught them to speak English pretty well; and all the children they had, which were near twenty in all, were taught to speak English too, from their first learning to fpeak, though they at firft fpoke it in a very broken manner, like their mothers. There were none of thofe children above fix years old when I came thither; for it was not much above feven feven years that they had fetched thefe five favage ladies over, but they had all been pretty fruitful, for they had all children, more or less: I think the cook's mate's wife was big of her fixth child; and the mothers were all a good fort of well governed, quiet, laborious women, modeft and decent, helpful to one another, mighty obfervant and subject to their masters, I cannot call them husbands; and wanted nothing but to be well inftructed in the Chriftian religion, and to be legally married; both which were happily brought about afterwards by my means, or, at least, by the confequence of my coming among them. Having thus given an account of the colony in general, and pretty much of my five runagade Englifhmen, I must fay fomething of the Spaniards, who were the main body of the family; and in whose ftory there are fome incidents alfo remarkable enough. I had a great many difcourfes with them about their circumstances, when they were among the favages they told me readily, that they had no inftances to give of their application or ingenuity in that country; that they were a poor, miferable, dejected handful of people; that if means had been put into their hands, they had yet fo abandoned themfelves to defpair, and fo funk under the weight of their misfortunes, that they thought of nothing but ftarving. One of them, a grave and very fenfible man, told me, he was convinced they were in the wrong; that it was not the part of wife men to give up themselves to their misery, but always to take hold of the helps which reason offered, as well for present fupport, as for future deliverance; he told me, that grief was the moft fenfelefs, infignificant paffion in the world; for that it regarded only things past, which were generally impoffible to be recalled or to be remedied, but had no view to things to come, and had no fhare in any thing that looked like deliverance, but rather added to the affliction than propofed a remedy; and upon this, he repeated a Spanish proverb; which, though I cannot repeat in just the fame words that he spoke it, yet I remember I made it into an English proverb of my own, thus: In trouble to be troubled, Is to have your trouble doubled. He then ran on in remarks upon all the little improvements I had made in my folitude; my unwearied application, as he called it, and how I had made a condition, which, in its circumftances, was at first much worse than their's, a thousand times more happy than their's was, even now, when they were altogether he told me, it was remarkable, that Englishmen had a greater prefence of mind, in their distress, than any people that ever he met with; that their unhappy nation, and the Portuguefe, were the worft men in the world to ftruggle with misfortunes; for that their firft ftep in dangers, after common efforts are over, was always to despair, lie down under it and die, without roufing their thoughts up to proper remedies for escape. I told him, their cafe and mine differed exceedingly; that they were cast upon the fhore without neceffaries, without fupply of food, or of prefent fuftenance, till they could provide it: that it is true, had this difadvantage and difcomfort, that I was alone; but then the fupplies I had providentially I thrown |
