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第3章 现场科普

　　I have observed above that our ship sprung a leak at sea, and thatwe could not find it out; and it happened that, as I have said, itwas stopped unexpectedly, on the eve of our being pursued by theDutch and English ships in the bay of Siam; yet, as we did not findthe ship so perfectly tight and sound as we desired, we resolvedwhile we were at this place to lay her on shore, and clean herbottom, and, if possible, to find out where the leaks were.Accordingly, having lightened the ship, and brought all our gunsand other movables to one side, we tried to bring her down, that wemight come at her bottom; but, on second thoughts, we did not careto lay her on dry ground, neither could we find out a proper placefor it.

　　And here it is very well worth observing that, as it often happensin the world (what the wise ends in God's providence are, in such adisposition of things, I cannot say), the two honest fellows hadthe two worst wives; and the three reprobates, that were scarceworth hanging, that were fit for nothing, and neither seemed bornto do themselves good nor any one else, had three clever, careful,and ingenious wives; not that the first two were bad wives as totheir temper or humour, for all the five were most willing, quiet,passive, and subjected creatures, rather like slaves than wives;but my meaning is, they were not alike capable, ingenious, orindustrious, or alike cleanly and neat. Another observation I mustmake, to the honour of a diligent application on one hand, and tothe disgrace of a slothful, negligent, idle temper on the other,that when I came to the place, and viewed the several improvements,plantings, and management of the several little colonies, the twomen had so far out-gone the three, that there wa

ee tothemselves, their fright was over, and they saw no savages forseveral years after.

　　As they came on shore in the evening, and at the easternmost sideof the island, our men had that night to consult and consider whatto do. In the first place, knowing that their being entirelyconcealed was their only safety before and would be much more sonow, while the number of their enemies would be so great, theyresolved, first of all, to take down the huts which were built forthe two Englishmen, and drive away their goats to the old cave;because they supposed the savages would go directly thither, assoon as it was day, to play the old game over again, though theydid not now land within two leagues of it. In the next place, theydrove away all the flocks of goats they had at the old bower, as Icalled it, which belonged to the Spaniards; and, in short, left aslittle appearance of inhabitants anywhere as was possible; and thenext morning early they posted themselves, with all their force, atthe plantation of the two men, to wait for their coming. As theyguessed, so it happened: these new invaders, leavi

　　The road all on this side of the country is very populous, and isfull of potters and earth-makers - that is to say, people, thattemper the earth for the China ware. As I was coming along, ourPortuguese pilot, who had always something or other to say to makeus merry, told me he would show me the greatest rarity in all thecountry, and that I should have this to say of China, after all theill-humoured things that I had said of it, that I had seen onething which was not to be seen in all the world beside. I was veryimportunate to know what it was; at last he told me it was agentleman's house built with China ware. "Well," says I, "are notthe materials of their buildings the products of their own country,and so it is all China ware, is it not?" - "No, no," says he, "Imean it is a house all made of China ware, such as you call it inEngland, or as it is called in our country, porcelain." - "Well,"says I, "such a thing may be; how big is it? Can we carry it in abox upon a camel? If we can we will buy it." - "U

　　Will Atkins, with abundance of frankness and good humour, said theyhad met with affliction enough to make them all sober, and enemiesenough to make them all friends; that, for his part, he would liveand die with them, and was so far from designing anything againstthe Spaniards, that he owned they had done nothing to him but whathis own mad humour made necessary, and what he would have done, andperhaps worse, in their case; and that he would ask them pardon, ifI desired it, for the foolish and brutish things he had done tothem, and was very willing and desirous of living in terms ofentire friendship and union with them, and would do anything thatlay in his power to convince them of it; and as for going toEngland, he cared not if he did not go thither these twenty years.

hough I had notthe letter till I got to London, several years after it waswritten, that they went on but poorly; were discontented with theirlong stay there; that Will Atkins was dead; that five of theSpaniards were come away; and though they had not been muchmolested by the savages, yet they had had some skirmishes withthem; and that they begged of him to write to me to think of thepromise I had made to fetch them away, that they might see theircountry again before they died.

　　Among the rest of the supplies sent to my tenants in the island, Isent them by the sloop three milch cows and five calves; abouttwenty-two hogs, among them three sows; two mares, and a stone-horse. For my Spaniards, according to my promise, I engaged threeBrazil women to go, and recommended it to them to marry them, anduse them kindly. I could have procured more women, but Iremembered that the poor persecuted man had two daughters, and thatthere were but five of the Spaniards that wanted partners; the resthad wives of their own, though in another country. All this cargoarrived safe, and, as you may easily suppose, was very welcome tomy old inhabitants, who were now, with this addition, between sixtyand seventy people, besides little children, of which there were agreat many. I found letters at London from them all, by way ofLisbon, when I came back to England.

　　"I am persuaded," says he, "had those men lived in the savagecountry whence their wives came, the savages would have taken morepains to have brought them to be idolaters, and to worship thedevil, than any of these men, so far as I can see, have taken withthem to teach the knowledge of the true God. Now, sir," said he,"though I do not acknowledge your religion, or you mine, yet wewould be glad to see the devil's servants and the subjects of hiskingdom taught to know religion; and that they might, at least,hear of God and a Redeemer, and the resurrection, and of a futurestate - things which we all believe; that they might, at least, beso much nearer coming into the bosom of the true Church than theyare now in the public profession of idolatry and devil-worship."