Master. Where do they carry them?
Friday. Go to other place where they think.
Master. Do they come hither?
Friday. Yes, yes, they come hither; come other else place.
Master. Have you been here with them?
Friday. Yes, I been here [points to the N.W. side of the island, which, it seems, was their side.]
By this I understood, that my man Friday had formerly been among the savages, who used to come on shore on the farther part of the island, on the said man eating occasions that he was now brought for; and some time after, when I took the courage to carry him to that side, being the same I formerly mentioned, he presently knew the place, and told me, he was there once when they ate up twenty men, two women, and one child: he could not tell twenty in English, but he numbered them by laying so many stones in a row, and pointing to me to tell them over.
I have told this passage, because it introduces what follows; that after I had had this discourse with him, I asked him, how far it was from our island to the shore, and whether the canoes were not often lost? He told me there was no danger, no canoes ever lost; but that after a little way out to sea, there was a current, and a wind always one way in the morning, the other in the afternoon.
This I understand to be no more than the sets of the tide, as going out, or coming in; but I afterwards understood it was occasioned by the great draught and reflux of the mighty river Oroonoque; in the mouth of which river, as I thought afterwards, our island lay; and that this land, which I perceived to the W. and N.W. was the great island Trinidad, on the north point of the mouth of the river. I asked Friday a thousand questions about the country, the inhabitants, the sea, the coast, and what nations were near: he told me all he knew with the greatest openness imaginable. I asked him the names of the several nations of his sort of people, but could get no other name than Caribs; from whence I easily understood, that these were the Caribees, which our maps place on that part of America which reaches from the mouth of the river Oroonoque to Guinea, and onwards to St. Martha. He told me, that up a great way beyond the moon, that was, beyond the setting of the moon, which must be W. from their country, there dwelt white-bearded men, like me, and pointed to my great whiskers, which I mentioned before; and that they had killed much mans, that was his word: by which I understood he meant the Spaniards, whose cruelties in America had been spread over the whole countries, and were remembered by all the nations from father to son.
I inquired if he could tell me how I might come from this island, and get among those white men; he told me, Yes, yes, I might go in two canoe; I could not understand what he meant by two canoe; till at last, with great difficulty, I found he meant, that it must be in a large great boat as big as two canoes.