452 DOMESTIC DETAILS.

or what you please to eall them, which went in through ono an-
other, two on either hand of the passage that led through the outer
door to the inner tent.

Such a piece of basket-work, I believe, was never seen in the
world, nor a house or tent so neatly contrived, much less so built.
In this great bee-hive lived the three families, that is to say, Will
Atkins and his companion. The third was killed, but his wife
remained with three children; for she was, it seems, big with
child when he died. And the other two were not at all backward
to give the widow her full share of everything—T mean, as to their
eorn, milk, grapes, &e., and when they killed a kid, or found a
turtle on the shore; so that they all lived well enough, though it
was true they were not so industrious as the other two, as has
been observed already.

One thing, however, cannot be omitted, namely, that as for
religion, I don’t know that there was anything 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 seamen ;
namely, swearing by his name. Nor were their poor ignorant
savage wives much the better for having been married to Christians,
as we must call them; for as they knew very little of God them-
selves, so they were utterly incapable of entering into any discourse
with their wives about a God, or to talk anything to them concern-
ing religion,

The utmost of all the improvements which I can say the wives
had made from them was, that they had taught them to speak
Knglish pretty well; and all the children they had, which were
near twenty inall, were taught to speak Hnglish too, from their first
learning to speak, though they at first spoke it in a very broken
manner like their mothers. There were none of these children
above six years old when I came thither, for it was not much
above seven years that they had fetched these five savage 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 sixth
child. And the mothers were all a good sort of well-governed, quiet,
laborious women, modest and decent, helpful to one another;
mighty observant and subject to their masters—I cannot call them