How they take the Wild Boar.The wild Hog is of all other the hardest to be caught; and ’tis dangerous to attempt the catching of him. For the people make valour to consist in three things, one is to fight against the Enemy, another to hunt the Elephant, and the third to catch Hoggs. Yet sometimes by their art they entrap them. And that they do after this manner. They dig an hole in the Earth of a convenient depth, and fix divers sharp stakes in the bottom of it. Then they cover it over lightly with Earth and Leaves, and plant thereupon roots which the Hog loves, as Potatoes or such like, which will grow there. And the pit remains, it may be sometimes months or half a year, till at last an Hog comes, and while he is rooting his weight betrayes him and in he falls.
Again, sometimes they will set a falling trap of an exceeding weight, and under it plant Roots and such like things, which the Hog delights in. There are contrivances under the weeds and leaves, which when he goes to eat by touching or treading upon something fastned to the trap, it falls down upon him. These are made so artificially, that people sometimes have been caught and destroyed by them. Once such a trap in my remembrance fell upon three women and killed them. Who having been stealing Cotton in a Plantation, and fearing to be catched went to creep out at a hole, where this Trap stood.
And thus I have related some of their ways of taking wild Cattel. They are good also at catching Birds and Vermin; In fine, they are the cunningest people in the World for such kind of traps and gins. And all of them they make onely by the help of their Knives with green sticks and withs that grow in the Woods. And so much of their Beasts.
CHAP. VII.
Of their Birds, Fish, Serpents, Commodities.
Their Birds.In the next place I will entertain you with some relation of the other living Creatures among them. I begin with their Birds. In that Land there are Crowes, Sparrowes, Tom-titts, Snipes, just like these in England, Wood-Pigeons also, but not great flocks of any sorts, as we have, onely of Crowes and Pigeons. I have seen there Birds just like Woodcocks and Partridges, but they are scarce. A great many wild Peacocks: small green Parrots, but not very good to talk. But here is another Such as will be taught to speak.Bird in their Language called Mal-cowda, which with teaching will speak excellently well. It is black with yellow gills about the bigness of a Black-Bird: And another sort there is of the same bigness, called Cau-cowda, yellow like gold, very beautiful to the eye, which also might be taught to speak.
Such as are beautiful for colour.Here are other sorts of small Birds, not much bigger than a Sparrow, very lovely to look on, but I think good for nothing else: some being in colour white like Snow, and their tayl about one foot in length, and their heads black like jet, with a tuft like a plume of Feathers standing upright thereon. There are others of the same sort onely differing in colour, being reddish like a ripe Orange, and on the head a Plume of black Feathers standing up. I suppose, one may be the Cock, and the other the Hen. Page 28
A strange Bird.Here is a sort of Bird they call Carlo, which never lighteth on the ground, but always sets on very high Trees. He is as big as a Swan, the colour black, the Legs very short, the Head monstrous, his Bill very long, a little rounding like a Hawks, and white on each side of the head, like ears: on the top of the crown groweth out a white thing, somewhat like to the comb of a Cock; commonly they keep four or five of them together; and always are hopping from bough to bough; They are seldom silent, but continually make a roaring noyse, somewhat like the quacking of a Duck, that they may be heard at least a mile off; the reason they thus cry, the Chingulayes say, is for Rain, that they may drink. The bodies of these Fowls are good to eat.