Tbefflftorjof Book 11. 



their curiofities and their trinkets 5 and prefent you withFruits,or 

 fome little pieces of their own workmanlhip. 



If any one be defirous to continue a while among them, they 

 take it for a great favour, and are extreamly glad of it, and 

 find the fame treatment as atfirft : But if they are willing to 

 be gone from them, they are troubled, and ask whether you 

 diflike your entertainment, that you (hould be gone fo foon. 

 With that fad countenance they all re-conduct you to the Sea- 

 fide, nay will carry you into your Shallops, if you will fufFer 

 it : And at that final parting they again prefent you with fruits, 

 which they force you to accept, faying to thofe who would re- 

 fufethem, Friend^if thou ha& no need of it thy felf } thou mayfi 

 give it to thy Marriners'-, fo they call all the Servants and Dome- 

 fticks of thofe to whom they fpeak.The Brafitians and the Cana- 

 dians, as fome affirm, do alfo make prefents upon the like occa- 

 fions : And Tacitus relates, that the ancient Germans made pre- 

 fents to the Strangers who came to vifit them 5 but they reci- 

 procally demanded fomething of them : In this point the Ca- 

 ribbians (hew themfelves more generous, for they give, and re- 

 quire nothing back in lieu of it. 



But it would be an incivility to go and vifit thefe good peo- 

 ple and to receive their kindneffes,and not to prefent them with 

 fomething : Whence it comes that the Strangers, who goto fee 

 them, never go without fome grains of Chryftal, Fifliing-hook», 

 Needles, Pins, or little Knives, or fome fuch toies : And af- 

 foon as they have done eating, they fet on the little Table, on 

 which they have eaten, fome of thofe things : Thofe who 

 have prepared the Banquet think themfelves requited a 

 hundred-fold , and make extraordinary acknowledgments 

 thereof. 



We have hitherto reprefented what treatment the Caribbi- 

 ans have heretofore made to fome of their friends, French 

 and Dutch, who took occafion to vifit them : But they ufe 

 other Ceremonies at the reception of Strangers of their own 

 Nation, or their Confederates, who chance to come into their 

 Iflands : There is in every Carbet a Savage, who hath a Corn- 

 million to receive PalTengers, and is called Niouakaiti : If they 

 arc of the common fort, he prefects them with Seats, and what 

 is fit for them to eat, especially a CdJ&fcu-cake folded double, 

 which fignifies that they may eat as much as they can, and leave 

 the reft behind them. 



If thofe who come to fee them, or pafs by occafionally are 

 confiderablc to them upon any other account, as being fome 

 way related to them, or Captains, they comb their hair both 

 at their coming and their going away, they hangup Bed?, and 

 invite them to reft themfelves, faying, En Bouehjra, behold thy 

 Bed : They alfo prefent them with Matoutous, which are little 

 Tables made of Rufties, or the leave* of Palms or Lataniers, 



as 



in 



