270 LOSS OF A JAMAICA SLOOP. 
it, and oftentimes go up it forty or fifty nniles ; and when they 
draw near the Indian settlements they paddle up the river very 
softly, and hide themselves under the bushes till night, to avoid 
being discovered. When they arrive at a proper place, their 
guide conducts them to the town, which they surround, and 
seize all the inhabitants, who are all made slaves ; but it some- 
times happens that the guide misses his w^ay in the night, and 
they are descried by the inhabitants, who take the alarm. 
While some are defending themselves others make their es- 
cape into the woods, so that few are made prisoners, except 
women and children, who are generally sent to Jamaica and 
sold for slaves. I have seen many of these poor wretches 
sold there, which have had so pitiful a look it would soften the 
most obdurate heart. My padrone's wife was one of these 
people, and some other white men kept these women as their 
wives, who live tolerably well. 
"When the 'Mosketoe people are out on one of these ex- 
peditions, if they do not return by the time they are expected, 
their relations and friends grow uneasy, and often consult 
their sookeys to know where they are, what success they have 
had, and when they will return. All which questions they 
pretend to answer, upon consulting some demon or spirit 
which they are supposed to converse with ; but they return 
answers in such dubious terms, that will admit of any con- 
struction, so that they are always in the right. When their 
sookeys are applied to in a proper manner, that is, with ma- 
king them a good present, they retire to a little hut in the re- 
mote part of the woods, which is sacred, and where no one 
must presume to go but themselves : when they go upon 
these inquiries, they sometimes remain about three or four 
hours before they return, and are commonly in a violent sweat 
when they come out of those huts, and com.municate to the 
people what they think most proper to the present purpose. 
These sookeys have gained great credit among the people by 
their pretending to foretell future events ; there are numbers 
of these sort of people, as weJl among the negroes as the In- 
dians, and are more properly conjurers than priests, who have 
the advantage of living free from care, being supplied with 
necessaries by the public. We may observe nearer hand, in 
Popish countries, great numbers of men not much unlike the 
Indian sookeys, or the negro fitish men, who by their art and 
cunning have got so much the better of their fellow-creatures, 
that a good part of the world are their slaves. I was credi- 
bly informed that a white man from Jamaica, having lived 
