"The inhabitants of this country are the miserablest people in the world. The Hodmadods of Monomatapa, though a nasty people, yet for wealth are gentlemen to these; who have no houses, and skin garments, sheep, poultry, and fruits of the earth, ostrich eggs, etc., as the Hodmadods have: and setting aside their human shape, they differ but little from brutes. They are tall, straight-bodied, and thin, with small, long limbs. They have great heads, round foreheads, and great brows. Their eye-lids are always half closed, to keep the flies out of their eyes; they being so troublesome here, that no fanning will keep them from coming to one's face; and without the assistance of both hands to keep them off, they will creep into one's nostrils, and mouth too, if the lips are not shut very close; so that from their infancy, being thus annoyed with these insects, they do never open their eyes as other people; and therefore they cannot see far, unless they hold up their heads, as if they were looking at somewhat over them.
"They have great bottle-noses, pretty full lips, and wide mouths. The two fore-teeth of their upper jaw are wanting in all of them, men and women, old and young; whether they draw them out, I know not: neither have they any beards. They are long-visaged, and of a very unpleasant aspect, having no one graceful feature in their faces. Their hair is black, short and curled, like that of the negroes; and not long and lank like the common Indians. The colour of their skins, both of their faces and the rest of their body, is coal-black, like that of the negroes of Guinea.*
(*Footnote. The natives of Hanover Bay, with whom we communicated, were not deprived of their front teeth, and wore their beards long; they also differed from the above description in having their hair long and curly. Dampier may have been deceived in this respect, and from the use that they make of their hair, by twisting it up into a substitute for thread, they had probably cut it off close, which would give them the appearance of having woolly hair like the negro.)
"They have no sort of clothes, but a piece of the rind of a tree tied like a girdle about their waists, and a handful of long grass, or three or four small green boughs full of leaves, thrust under their girdle, to cover their nakedness.
"They have no houses, but lie in the open air without any covering; the earth being their bed, and the heaven their canopy. Whether they cohabit one man to one woman, or promiscuously, I know not; but they do live in companies, twenty or thirty men, women, and children together. Their only food is a small sort of fish, which they get by making weirs of stone across little coves or branches of the sea; every tide bringing in the small fish, the there leaving them for a prey to these people, who constantly attend there to search for them at low water. This small fry I take to be the top of their fishery: they have no instruments to catch great fish, should they come; and such seldom stay to be left behind at low water: nor could we catch any fish with our hooks and lines all the while we lay there. In other places at low water they seek for cockles, mussels, and periwinkles. Of these shell-fish there are fewer still; so that their chief dependence is upon what the sea leaves in their wares; which, be it much or little, they gather up, and march to the places of their abode. There the old people that are not able to stir abroad by reason of their age, and the tender infants, wait their return; and what Providence has bestowed on them, they presently broil on the coals, and eat it in common. Sometimes they get as many fish as makes them a plentiful banquet; and at other times they scarce get every one a taste; but be it little or much that they get, every one has his part, as well the young and tender, the old and feeble, who are not able to go abroad, as the strong and lusty. When they have eaten they lie down till the next low water, and then all that are able march out, be it night or day, rain or shine, 'tis all one; they must attend the weirs, or else they must fast; for the earth affords them no food at all. There is neither herb, root, pulse, nor any sort of grain for them to eat, that we saw; nor any sort of bird or beast that they can catch, having no instruments wherewithal to do so.
"I did not perceive that they did worship anything. These poor creatures have a sort of weapon to defend their weir, or fight with their enemies, if they have any that will interfere with their poor fishery. They did at first endeavour with their weapons to frighten us, who, lying ashore, deterred them from one of their fishing-places. Some of them had wooden swords, others had a sort of lances. The sword is a piece of wood shaped somewhat like a cutlass.* The lance is a long straight pole, sharp at one end, and hardened afterwards by heat. I saw no iron, nor any sort of metal; therefore it is probable they use stone hatchets, as some Indians in America do, described in Chapter 4.
(*Footnote. Probably a boomerang. See volume 1.)
"How they get their fire I know not; but probably as Indians do, out of wood. I have seen the Indians of Bon-Airy do it, and have myself tried the experiment. They take a flat piece of wood that is pretty soft, and make a small dent in one side of it, then they take another hard, round stick, about the bigness of one's little finger, and sharpened at one end like a pencil, they put that sharp end in the hole or dent of the flat soft piece, and then rubbing or twirling the hard piece between the palm of their hands, they drill the soft piece till it smokes, and at last takes fire.
"These people speak somewhat through the throat; but we could not understand one word that they said. We anchored, as I said before, January the 5th, and seeing men walking on the shore, we presently sent a canoe to get some acquaintance with them; for we were in hopes to get some provision among them. But the inhabitants, seeing our boat coming, run away and hid themselves. We searched afterwards three days in hopes to find their houses, but found none; yet we saw many places where they had made fires. At last, being out of hopes to find their habitations, we searched no farther; but left a great many toys ashore, in such places where we thought they would come. In all our search we found no water, but old wells on the sandy bays.
"At last we went over to the islands, and there we found a great many of the natives; I do believe there were forty on one island, men, women, and children. The men on our first coming ashore, threatened us with their lances and swords; but they were frightened by firing one gun, which we fired purposely to scare them. The island was so small that they could not hide themselves; but they were much disordered at our landing, especially the women and children; for we went directly to their camp. The lustiest of the women snatching up their infants ran away howling, and the little children run after squeaking and bawling; but the men stood still. Some of the women, and such people as could not go from us, lay still by a fire, making a doleful noise, as if we had been coming to devour them: but when they saw we did not intend to harm them, they were pretty quiet, and the rest that fled from us at our first coming, returned again. This their place of dwelling was only a fire, with a few boughs before it, set up on the side the winds was of.