424 A FAMILY IN DISHABILLE.

be fat enough to kill. If they looked at one of them more parti-
cularly, the party presently concluded it was to see whether he or
she was fattest and fittest to kill. Nay, after they had brought
them quite over, and begun to use them kindly and treat them
well, still they expected every day to make a dinner or supper for
their new masters.

When the three wanderers had given this unaccountable history
or journal of their voyage, the Spaniard asked them, “ Where their
new family was?” And being told that they had brought them
on shore and put them into one of their huts, and were come up to
beg some victuals for them; they (the Spaniards) and the other
two Englishmen, that is to say, the whole colony, resolved to go
all down to the place and see them, and did so, and Friday’s father
with them. 2

When they came into the hut, there they sat all bound; for
when they had brought them on ‘shore, they bound their hands
that they might not take the boat and make their escape. There,
T say, they sat, all of them stark naked. First, there were three
men, lusty comely fellows, well shaped, straight and fair limbs,
about thirty to thirty-five years of age; and five women, whereof two
might be from thirty to forty; two more not above four or five and
twenty; and the fifth, a tall, comely maiden, about sixteen or
seventeen. ‘The women were well-favoured, agreeable persons, both
in shape and features, only tawny, and two of them, had they been
perfectly white, would have passed for very handsome women even
in London itself, having pleasant agreeable countenances, and of a
very modest behaviour, especially when they came afterwards to be
clothed and dressed, as they called it, though the dress was very
indifferent, it must be confessed ; of which hereafter.

The sight, you may be sure, was something uncouth to our
Spaniards, who were (to give them a just character) men of the
best behaviour, of the most calm, sedate tempers, and perfect good-
humour that ever I met with, and, in particular, of the most
modesty, as will presently appear: I say, the sight was very
uncouth, to see three naked men and five naked women all together
bound, and in the most miserable circumstances that human nature
could be supposed to be, namely, to be expecting every moment