them; but they forbid, on pain of death, any one of the Indians
coming to them, because they would not have their settlement
betrayed again. One thing was very remarkable, viz. that they
taught the savages to make wicker-work, or baskets, but they soon
outdid their masters: for they made abundance of ingenious things
in wicker-work, particularly baskets, sieves, bird-cages,
cupboards, &c.; as also chairs, stools, beds, couches, being very
ingenious at such work when they were once put in the way of it.
My coming was a particular relief to these people, because we
furnished them with knives, scissors, spades, shovels, pick-axes,
and all things of that kind which they could want. With the help
of those tools they were so very handy that they came at last to
build up their huts or houses very handsomely, raddling or working
it up like basket-work all the way round. This piece of ingenuity,
although it looked very odd, was an exceeding good fence, as well
against heat as against all sorts of vermin; and our men were so
taken with it that they got the Indians to come and do the like for
them; so that when I came to see the two Englishmen’s colonies,
they looked at a distance as if they all lived like bees in a hive.
As for Will Atkins, who was now become a very industrious, useful,
and sober fellow, he had made himself such a tent of basket-work as
I believe was never seen; it was one hundred and twenty paces round
on the outside, as I measured by my steps; the walls were as close
worked as a basket, in panels or squares of thirty-two in number,
and very strong, standing about seven feet high; in the middle was
another not above twenty-two paces round, but built stronger, being
octagon in its form, and in the eight corners stood eight very
strong posts; round the top of which he laid strong pieces, knit
together with wooden pins, from which he raised a pyramid for a
handsome roof of eight rafters, joined together very well, though
he had no nails, and only a few iron spikes, which he made himself,
too, out of the old iron that I had left there. Indeed, this
fellow showed abundance of ingenuity in several things which he had
no knowledge of: he made him a forge, with a pair of wooden
bellows to blow the fire; he made himself charcoal for his work;
and he formed out of the iron crows a middling good anvil to hammer
upon: in this manner he made many things, but especially hooks,
staples, and spikes, bolts and hinges. But to return to the house:
after he had pitched the roof of his innermost tent, he worked it
up between the rafters with basket-work, so firm, and thatched that
over again so ingeniously with rice-straw, and over that a large
leaf of a tree, which covered the top, that his house was as dry as
if it had been tiled or slated. He owned, indeed, that the savages
had made the basket-work for him. The outer circuit was covered as
a lean-to all round this inner apartment, and long rafters lay from
the thirty-two angles to the top posts of the inner house, being
about twenty feet distant, so that there was a space like a walk
within the outer wicker-wall, and without the inner, near twenty
feet wide.
The inner place he partitioned off with the same wickerwork, but
much fairer, and divided into six apartments, so that he had six
rooms on a floor, and out of every one of these there was a door:
first into the entry, or coming into the main tent, another door
into the main tent, and another door into the space or walk that
was round it; so that walk was also divided into six equal parts,
which served not only for a retreat, but to store up any
necessaries which the family had occasion for. These six spaces
not taking up the whole circumference, what other apartments the
outer circle had were thus ordered: As soon as you were in at the
door of the outer circle you had a short passage straight before