At length, struggling to get loose, I had the fortune to break the
strings and wrench out the pegs that fastened my left arm to the ground;
for, by lifting it up to my face, I discovered the methods they had
taken to bind me, and, at the same time, with a violent pull, which gave
me excessive pain, I a little loosened the strings that tied down my
hair on the left side, so that I was just able to turn my head about two
inches. But the creatures ran off a second time, before I could seize
them; whereupon there was a great shout, in a very shrill accent, and,
after it ceased, I heard one of them cry aloud, "Tolgo phonac"; when, in
an instant, I felt above an hundred arrows discharged on my left hand,
which pricked me like so many needles; and, besides, they shot another
flight into the air, as we do bombs in Europe; whereof many, I suppose,
fell on my body (though I felt them not), and some on my face, which I
immediately covered with my left hand.

When this shower of arrows was over, I fell a-groaning with grief and
pain; and then, striving again to get loose, they discharged another
volley, larger than the first, and some of them attempted, with spears,
to stick me in the sides; but, by good luck, I had on me a buff[2]
jerkin, which they could not pierce. I thought it the most prudent
method to lie still; and my design was to continue so till night, when,
my left hand being already loose, I could easily free myself; and as for
the inhabitants, I had reason to believe I might be a match for the
greatest armies they could bring against me, if they were all of the
same size with him that I saw.

[Footnote 2: _Buff_ is the name given to a kind of leather, made
originally of buffalo hide, but later of the skins of other animals]

But fortune disposed otherwise of me. When the people observed I was