ships; and a third without any colours spread out, but which we
believed to be a Dutchman, passed by at about two leagues’
distance, steering for the coast of China; and in the afternoon
went by two English ships steering the same course; and thus we
thought we saw ourselves beset with enemies both one way and the
other. The place we were in was wild and barbarous, the people
thieves by occupation; and though it is true we had not much to
seek of them, and, except getting a few provisions, cared not how
little we had to do with them, yet it was with much difficulty that
we kept ourselves from being insulted by them several ways. We
were in a small river of this country, within a few leagues of its
utmost limits northward; and by our boat we coasted north-east to
the point of land which opens the great bay of Tonquin; and it was
in this beating up along the shore that we discovered we were
surrounded with enemies. The people we were among were the most
barbarous of all the inhabitants of the coast; and among other
customs they have this one: that if any vessel has the misfortune
to be shipwrecked upon their coast, they make the men all prisoners
or slaves; and it was not long before we found a spice of their
kindness this way, on the occasion following.
I have observed above that our ship sprung a leak at sea, and that
we could not find it out; and it happened that, as I have said, it
was stopped unexpectedly, on the eve of our being pursued by the
Dutch and English ships in the bay of Siam; yet, as we did not find
the ship so perfectly tight and sound as we desired, we resolved
while we were at this place to lay her on shore, and clean her
bottom, and, if possible, to find out where the leaks were.
Accordingly, having lightened the ship, and brought all our guns
and other movables to one side, we tried to bring her down, that we
might come at her bottom; but, on second thoughts, we did not care
to lay her on dry ground, neither could we find out a proper place
for it.
CHAPTER XII – THE CARPENTER’S WHIMSICAL CONTRIVANCE
THE inhabitants came wondering down the shore to look at us; and
seeing the ship lie down on one side in such a manner, and heeling
in towards the shore, and not seeing our men, who were at work on
her bottom with stages, and with their boats on the off-side, they
presently concluded that the ship was cast away, and lay fast on
the ground. On this supposition they came about us in two or three
hours’ time with ten or twelve large boats, having some of them
eight, some ten men in a boat, intending, no doubt, to have come on
board and plundered the ship, and if they found us there, to have
carried us away for slaves.
When they came up to the ship, and began to row round her, they
discovered us all hard at work on the outside of the ship’s bottom
and side, washing, and graving, and stopping, as every seafaring
man knows how. They stood for a while gazing at us, and we, who
were a little surprised, could not imagine what their design was;
but being willing to be sure, we took this opportunity to get some
of us into the ship, and others to hand down arms and ammunition to
those that were at work, to defend themselves with if there should
be occasion. And it was no more than need: for in less than a
quarter of an hour’s consultation, they agreed, it seems, that the
ship was really a wreck, and that we were all at work endeavouring
to save her, or to save our lives by the help of our boats; and
when we handed our arms into the boat, they concluded, by that act,
that we were endeavouring to save some of our goods. Upon this,
they took it for granted we all belonged to them, and away they