Page:The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse.pdf/142

Tammaraka^[1] to fetch victuals. But the savages had laid large trees over the water-channel, there were many of them on both sides of the shore, intending to prevent our voyage. We broke these again by force and about midway we remained high and dry. The savages could do us no harm in the ships, but they threw much dry wood from their fort between the shore and the ships, thinking to burn it, and they hove their pepper which grows in that country, so as to drive us by the smoke out of the ships. But they did not succeed, and meanwhile the tide returned; we sailed to the settlement Tammaraka, the inhabitants gave us victuals, wherewith we sailed back to the besieged place. They had again thrown obstacles in our passage, they had laid trees as formerly across the channel, and they lay thereby upon the shore; they had all but felled two trees a little from the ground, and at the top they had tied things called Sippo,^[2] which grew like hops, but which are thicker. The ends they had made fast in their forts, as it was their intention when we came, and wanted again to break through, to pull the Sippo, that the trees might suddenly break and fall on the ships.

We sailed past, and broke through the first tree: it fell towards their fort, the other fell into the water close behind our small ship. And before we began to burst through the impediments, we called to our companions in the settlement, that they should come to our aid. When we commenced to