The English-American his travail by sea and land: or, a new svrvey of the West-Indias. Containing a journall of three thousand and three hundred miles within the main land of America ... With a grammar, or some few rudiments of the Indian tongue, called, Poconchi. Of Pocoman / By the true and painfull endevours of Thomas Gage.

Gage, Thomas, 1603?-1656.

Date:: 1648

Credit: The English-American his travail by sea and land: or, a new svrvey of the West-Indias. Containing a journall of three thousand and three hundred miles within the main land of America ... With a grammar, or some few rudiments of the Indian tongue, called, Poconchi. Of Pocoman / By the true and painfull endevours of Thomas Gage. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$-—rr^mtn n r - ..-^iiai.mr-- --*----- - - - - - Midas and Cr&\w, fancying the indies paved with tiles ot gold and iiiver, ih~ Uones to be Pearls, Rubies, and Diamonds, the trees tobee himg'with clufters of nutmegs bigger then thecluftersof grapes of Carman, the fields to be planted with Sugar Canes, which fhould fo fweeten the that it (hom'd farre exceed the milke and hony of the land o t promife; the hikes of China hee conceited fo common , that the failesot the Chip3 were nothingelfe ; finally he dreamed of Midas happineffe, that whatfoever he touched fhould be turned to golu.-Thus did Xerez Neftar make my friend and mortified Fryer, a covetous worldling. Andyetfroni a rich covetous Merchant didiefhapehimtoa Courtier in pieafures; fancying the Philippine to be the Eden, where was all joy withouttearcs, mirth without fadneffe, laughing without forrow, comfort without griefe, plenty withouc want,no not of Eves for Adams, excepted only that in it fhould be no forbidden fruit, but all lawful! tor the tafie and iweetni ng of the palate; and as Adam would have been as God, fo conceited Melendez himfefle a God in that Eden; whom travelling, Indian Waites and trumpets fhould accompany; and to whom, entringinto any Town, nofegaies fhould be prefented, flowers and boughes {hould be ftrowed in his way. Arches fhould be erected to ride under,Bds tor joy fhould be rung, and Indian knees for duty & homage,as to a God,fhould be bowed to the very ground. From this ioduringargumenCandreprefemation of a Paradife, he fell into aftrongRhetoricall point of curioficyjfinding out a tree of knowledge, and a Philo- fophicall maxime, Omnia homo naturalikrfeire dtjiderat, man naturally inclines to knew more and more; which knowledge he fancied could be no where more furnifhed with rare curiofities then in thofe parts 5 for there fhould the Gold and Silver, which here are fingered,in their growth in the bowels of the earth be known; there fhould the pepper be known in its feafon, the nutmeg and Clove, the Cinnamon as a rine or bark on a tree; the fafhioning of the Sugar from a green growing Cane into a loaf; the ftrangelhapingtheCcc^iw/froma worme to fo rich a Scarlet die; the changing of the ‘Iinta which is but grafic with ftalke and leaves into an /Wigoblack dye,fhould be taught and learned; and without much labour thus fhould our ignorance be inftru&ed with various and fundry curiofities of knowledge and underftanding. . Finally* though Xe- rez liquor ( grapes bewitching tears ) had put this bewitching eloquence into my An¬ tonies brain ) yet he doubted not to preferre before it his wine of PhiUppinos^ grow¬ ing on tall and high trees of Coco, wherein he longed to drinke a Spanifh Brindisin my company to all his friends remaining behind in Spain„ Who would net bee moved by thefe his arguments to follow him, and his Calvo, or ball pated Superiouj-/* Thusfup- per being ended my defired to know how my heart flood afftfted to his jour- ney ; and breaking out into a Veto a Vies with his converting zeal,he fwore he fhould have no quiet nights reft untillhe were fully fatisfied of my refolution to accompany him. And having learned the Poets expreflion, Quid non morteliapeVora cogit, Anri Ja~' era fames \ he offered unto me halfe a dozen of Spanifh piftols, afluring me that I fhould want nothing,and that the next morning Calvo (hould furnifhme with whatfoever mo¬ nies I needed,for to buy things neceflary for the comfort offb long and tedious a jour- ny.To whom I anfwercd,fuddain refolutions might bring future grief and forrow,and that I fhould that night lye down and take counfell with my pillow, afluring him that for his fake I woulddoemuch, and that if 1 refolved to goe,my refolution fbou’ddraw on an other friend of mine, an Irilh Fryer, named Thomas Velcon. Thustookelmy leaveof my Meletidez) and retired myfelf to my chamber and bed, which that night was no place of repofe and reft to me as formerly it had been. Imuftneedsfay Melendez his argument?, though moil of them moved me not; yet the opportunity offered me to hide my felffrom all fightand knowledge of my deareft friends, ftirred up in me a ferious thought of an angry and harfh letter, which not long before I had received 011c of England from mine own father, fignifying untome the difpleafure of moft of my friends and kindred, and his own grievous indignation againft me, for that having fpent fo much money in training me up to learning, I had not only utrerly refufed to be of the Jefuites Order ( which was his only hopes) but had proved in my affeftions a deadly foe and enemy unto them. And that he would have thought his money better fpent, if I had been a Scullion in a Colledge of Jefuites, then if 1 {hould prove a Generali of the Order of Dominicans; that I fhould never think to be welcome to my Brothers nor kindred in England, nor to him ; that I fhould not ex¬ pert ever more to hears from him, nor dare to lee him if ever I returned to England expert$

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