[Sidenote: Their boates.] They haue boates made of leather, and couered cleane ouer sauing one place in the middle to sit in, planked within with timber, and they vse to row therein with one Ore, more swiftly a great deale, then we in our boates can doe with twentie. They haue one sort of greater boates wherein they can carrie aboue twentie persons, and haue a Mast with a saile thereon, which saile is made of thinne skinnes or bladders, sowed togither with the sinewes of fishes.
They are good Fishermen, and in their small Boates being disguised with their coates of Seales skinnes, they deceiue the fish, who take them rather for their fellow Seales, then for deceiuing men.
They are good marke-men. With their dart or arrow they will commonly kill a
Ducke, or any other foule in the head, and commonly in the eye.
When they shoote at a great fish with any of their darts, they vse to tye a bladder thereunto, whereby they may the better find them againe, and the fish not able to cary it so easily away (for that the bladder doth boy the dart) will at length be wearie, and dye therewith.
[Sidenote: Traffique with some other nation vnknowen.] They vse to traffike and exchange their commodities with some other people, of whom they haue such things as their miserable Countrey, and ignorance of Art to make, denieth them to haue, as barres of yron, heads of yron for their darts, needles made foure square, certaine buttons of copper, which they vse to weare vpon their forehads for ornament, as our Ladies in the Court of England doe vse great pearle.
[Sidenote: Gold.] Also they haue made signes vnto vs, that they haue seene gold, and such bright plates of mettals, which are vsed for ornaments amongst some people with whom they haue conference.
We found also in their tents a Guiny Beane of redde colour, the which doth vsually grow in the hote Countreys: whereby it appeareth they trade with other nations which dwell farre off, or else themselues are great trauellers.
[Sidenote: Their fewell.] They haue nothing in vse among them to maker fire withall, sauing a kinde of Heath and Mosse which groweth there.
[Sidenote: How they make fire.] And they kindle their fire with continuall rubbing and fretting one sticke against another, as we doe with flints. They drawe with dogges in sleads vpon the yce, and remooue their tents therewithall wherein they dwell in Sommer, when they goe a hunting for their praye and prouision against Winter. [Sidenote: Their kettles and pannes.] They doe sometime parboyle their meat a little and seeth the same in kettles made of beast skins; they haue also pannes cut and made of stones very artificially; they vse prety ginnes wherewith they take foule. The women carry their sucking children at their backes, and doe feede them with raw flesh, which first they do a little chaw in their owne mouths. The women haue their faces marked or painted ouer with small blewe spots: they haue blacke and long haire on their heads, and trimme the same in a decent order. The men haue but little haire on their faces, and very thinne beards. For their common drinke, they eate yce to quench their thirst withall. [Sidenote: The people eate grasse and shrubs.] Their earth yeeldeth no graine or fruit of sustenance for man, or almost for beast to liue vpon: and the people will eate grasse and shrubs of the ground, euen as our kine doe. They haue no wood growing in their Countrey thereabouts, and yet wee finde they haue some timber among them, which we thinke doth growe farre off to the Southwards of this place, about Canada, or some other part of New found land: for there belike, the trees standing on the cliffes of the sea side, by the waight of yce and snow in Winter ouercharging them with waight, when the Sommers thaw commeth aboue, and the Sea vnderfretting beneath, which winneth dayly of the land, they are vndermined and fall downe from those cliffes into the Sea, and with the tydes and currents are driuen to and fro vpon the coastes further off, and by conjecture are taken vp here by these Countrey people, to serue them to planke and strengthen their boates withall, and to make dartes, bowes, and arrowes, and such other things necessarie for their vse. And of this kind of drift wood we find all the Seas ouer great store, which being cut or sawed asunder, by reason of long driuing in the Sea is eaten of wormes, and full of holes, of which sort theirs is found to be.
[Sidenote: A strange kind of gnat.] We haue not yet found any venomous Serpent or other hurtfull thing in these parts, but there is a kind of small flie or gnat that stingeth and offendeth sorely, leauing many red spots in the face, and other places where she stingeth. They haue snow and haile in the best time of their Sommer, and the ground frosen three fadome deepe.