A PLEASANT PROSPECT, 277

Friday described the boat to me well enough; but brought me
better to understand him when he added, with some warmth, ‘‘ We
save the white mans from drown.’ Then I presently asked him
if there were any white mans, as he called them, in the boat.
“Yes,” he said; “the boat full of white mans.” I asked him
how many. Ile told upon his fingers seventeen. I asked him
then what became of them. He told me, ‘‘ They live, they dwell
at my nation.”

‘This put new thoughts into my head; for I presently imagined
that these might be the men belonging to the ship that was cast
away in sight of my island, as I now call it; and who, after the
ship was struck on the rock, and they saw her inevitably lost, had
saved themselves in their boat, and were landed upon that wild
shore among the savages.

Upon this I inquired of him more critically what was become
of them. He assured me they lived still there; that they had
been there about four years; that the savages let them alone, and
gave them victuals to live. I asked him how it came to pass they
did not kill them and eat them. He said, “No, they make
brother with them;” that is, as I understood him, a truce. And
then he added, “ ‘They no eat mans but when make the war fight;”
that is to say, they never eat any men but such as come to fight
with them and are taken in battle.

It was after this some considerable time, that being on the top
of the hill, at the east side of the island, from whence, as I have
said, I had in a clear day discovered the main, or continent of
America, Friday, the weather being very serene, looks very
earnestly towards the mainland, and in a kind of surprise falls a
jumping and dancing, and calls out to me, for I was at some
distance from him. I asked him what was the matter. ‘ Oh,
joy!’’ says he, “oh, glad! There see my country, there my
nation |” >

I observed an extraordinary sense of pleasure appeared in his
face, and his eyes sparkled, and his countenance discovered a
strange eagerness, as if he had a mind to be in his own country
again; and this observation of mine put a great many thoughta
into me, which made me at first not so easy about ny new map