By this I understood that my man Friday had formerly been among the
savages who used to come on shore on the farther part of the
island, on the same man-eating occasions he was now brought for;
and some time after, when I took the courage to carry him to that
side, being the same I formerly mentioned, he presently knew the
place, and told me he was there once, when they ate up twenty men,
two women, and one child; he could not tell twenty in English, but
he numbered them by laying so many stones in a row, and pointing to
me to tell them over.
I have told this passage, because it introduces what follows: that
after this discourse I had with him, I asked him how far it was
from our island to the shore, and whether the canoes were not often
lost. He told me there was no danger, no canoes ever lost: but
that after a little way out to sea, there was a current and wind,
always one way in the morning, the other in the afternoon. This I
understood to be no more than the sets of the tide, as going out or
coming in; but I afterwards understood it was occasioned by the
great draft and reflux of the mighty river Orinoco, in the mouth or
gulf of which river, as I found afterwards, our island lay; and
that this land, which I perceived to be W.
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