Page:Account of a most surprising savage girl.pdf/4

4 her. This first stratagem having failed, the same person again advised to place a woman and some children near the tree, because savages commonly are not so shy of them as of men: and he bade them, above all, show her a friendly air, and a smiling countenance. His directions were complied with; a woman, with a child in her arms, came walking near the tree, carrying different sorts of roots and two fishes in her hands, which she held out to the savage, who descended a branch or two to be at them, but went back again. The woman still continued her invitation with an affable and pleasant countenance, accompanied with all the possible signs of friendship, such as laying her hand upon her breast, as if to assure her that she loved her, and would do her no harm. The savage was at last emboldened to come down the tree, and receive the roots and fishes; but the woman then enticing her from the tree, by retiring insensibly, gave time to the men who were lying in wait for her, to advance and seize her. She never mentioned any thing of the grief and anxiety she felt on being taken, nor of the efforts she made to escape; but we may easily imagine both. The shepherd, and the rest who had caught and brought