102 
SURVEY OF THE INTERTROPICAL 
1821. aboard; two of them were middle-aged, the 
Au^so. other two were young men about eighteen or 
twenty years old. To these we gave boiled 
rice, and with it turtle and manatee boiled. 
They did greedily devour what we gave them, 
but took no notice of the ship, or any thing in it, 
and when they were set on land again, they ran 
away as fast as they could. At our first coming, 
before we were acquainted with them, or they 
with us, a company of them who lived on the 
main, came just against our ship, and standing 
on a pretty high bank, threatened us with their 
swords and lances, by shaking them at us : at 
last the captain ordered the drum to be beaten, 
which was done of a sudden with much vigour, 
purposely to scare the poor creatures. They 
hearing the noise, ran away as fast as they 
could drive ; and when they ran away in haste, 
they would cry gurry, gurry, speaking deep in 
the throat. Those inhabitants also that live on 
the main would always run away from us ; yet 
we took several of them. For, as I have already 
observed, they had such bad eyes, that they 
they could not see us till we came close to them. 
We did always give them victuals, and let them 
go again, but the islanders, after our first time of 
being among them, did not stir for us^.” 
** Dampier, vol, i. p. 464, et seqf. 
