Page:Narrative of the life and adventures of Paul Cuffe, a Pequot Indian.djvu/22

Rh seed, and get it in with sticks where the land is not very mellow. It generally will sprout, and grow without any labor being bestowed upon it after sowing. The roots are fit for use in three months. These are cooked by roasting as we roast potatoes.

There is a missionary on this island and the people are more intelligent than most of the other islanders that vicinity.—They are one of the most peaceful and happy people with whom the writer was ever acquainted. They seem to be peculiarly the favorites of our Great Father. Possessing one of the most salubrious of climates, with every thing formed in nature, and growing spontaneously for their support, they are well fitted to enjoy life and all its attendant blessings. They are happy in their poverty and content in their simplicity; and I assure my readers, that it was not without many painful sensations that I left this ocean isle, and its peaceful inhabitants. May God ever be with and preserve them for their many acts of benevolence, shewn to the writer of this narrative, when a stranger thrown among them, and more than fourteen thousand miles from the land of his nativity.

One day, after I had been on the island about five months, I accidentally found a ship at the harbor which belonged to Martha's Vineyard, in the United States. This was the first, vessel which I had seen since I had been here. The Captain's name was Toby. After getting acquainted with this man, he proposed my going home with him. He said I had not better stay among the natives any longer—that, my folks at home would be glad to see me, I finally concluded to go with him. We sailed from this place sometime during the latter part of 1835 and arrived at the vineyard in the spring of 1836. While on our homeward bound passage, we lost three men, by being struck by a whale. After discharging our freight at Oldtown, on the Vineyard, I went home to New Bedford, where I stayed three months, when I again shipped aboard of a whaler called the Delight, Captain Philip Sanford. Our voyage was made to St. Domingo in twenty eight days. Here we commenced fishing, but catched nothing but black fish, which we sold for potatoes, oranges, squashes &c. We then went down upon the Jamaica coast, where we caught seven sperm whale; after this we went into Mexico Bay where we took four more whale.—Then we went to the Western Islands, where we caught three