Fourthly and lastly, Here wants as yet the good company of honest Christians to bring with them Horses, Kine and Sheepe to make vse of this fruitfull Land: great pittie it is to see so much good ground for Corne and for Grasse as any is vnder the Heauens, to lye altogether vnoccupied, when so many honest Men & their Families in old England through the populousnesse thereof, do make very hard shift to liue one by the other.
Now, thus you know what New-England is, as also with the commodities and discommodities thereof: now I will shew you a little of the Inhabitants thereof, and their gouernment.
For their Gouernours they haue Kings, which they call Saggamores, some greater, and some lesser, according to the number of their Subiects.
The greatest Saggamores about vs can not make aboue three hundred Men, and other lesse Saggamores haue not aboue fifteene Subiects, and others neere about vs but two.
Their Subiects about twelue yeeres since were swept away by a great and grieuous Plague that was amongst them, so that there are verie few left to inhabite the Countrey.
The Indians are not able to make vse of the one fourth part of the Land, neither haue they any setled places, as Townes to dwell in, nor any ground as they challenge for their owne possession, but change their habitation from place to place.
For their Statures, they are a tall and strong limmed People, their colours are tawny, they goe naked, saue onely they are in part couered with Beasts Skins on one of their Shoulders, and weare something before their Priuities: their Haire is generally blacke, and cut before like our Gentlewomen, and one locke longer then the rest, much like to our Gentlemen, which fashion I thinke came from hence into England.
For their weapons, they haue Bowes and Arrowes, some of them headed with Bone, and some with Brasse: I haue sent you some of them for an example.
The Men for the most part liue idlely, they doe nothing but hunt and fish: their wiues set their Corne and doe all their other worke. They haue little Houshold stuffe, as a Kettle, and same other Vessels like Trayes, Spoones, Dishes and Baskets.
Their Houses are verie little and homely, being made with small Poles pricked into the ground, and so bended and fastned at the tops, and on the sides they are matted with Boughes, & couered on the Roofe with Sedge and old Mats; and for their beds that they take their rest on, they haue a Mat.