Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage by Richard Hakluyt
page 78 of 168 (46%)
page 78 of 168 (46%)
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ashore, to see if there were there any people, or no, and going to
the top of the island, we had sight of seven boats, which came rowing from the east side toward that island; whereupon we returned aboard again. At length we sent our boat, with five men in her, to see whither they rowed, and so with a white cloth brought one of their boats with their men along the shore, rowing after our boat, till such time as they saw our ship, and then they rowed ashore. Then I went on shore myself, and gave every of them a threaden point, and brought one of them aboard of me, where he did eat and drink, and then carried him on shore again. Whereupon all the rest came aboard with their boats, being nineteen persons, and they spake, but we understood them not. They be like to Tartars, with long black hair, broad faces, and flat noses, and tawny in colour, wearing seal skins, and so do the women, not differing in the fashion, but the women are marked in the face with blue streaks down the cheeks and round about the eyes. Their boats are made all of seal skins, with a keel of wood within the skin: the proportion of them is like a Spanish shallop, save only they be flat in the bottom and sharp at both ends. The twentieth day we weighed, and went to the east side of this island, and I and the captain, with four men more, went on shore, and there we saw their houses, and the people espying us, came rowing towards our boat, whereupon we plied to our boat; and we being in our boat and they ashore, they called to us, and we rowed to them, and one of their company came into our boat, and we carried him aboard, and gave him a bell and a knife; so the captain and I willed five of our men to set him ashore at a rock, and not among the company which they came from, but their wilfulness was such that they would go to them, and so were taken themselves and our boat |
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