Page:The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse.pdf/150
said: The savages of this harbour were called the Tuppin Ikins, and were their friends, from them we had nothing to fear.
We inquired in what latitude this said land lay, they told us, in twenty-eight degrees, which is correct. They also gave us indications by which we could recognize the land.
Caput VIII.
How we then again sailed out of the harbour, in search of the country
to which we were bound.
Now when the east-south-easterly gale had subsided, the weather became fine, and when the wind blew from the north east, we got under sail, and went back again to the before mentioned country. We sailed for two days seeking the haven without being able to make it out. But we perceived by the shore, for the sun was so darkened that we could not take our observations, that we must have sailed past the harbour. We could not return on account of the wind, which opposed us.
But God is a helper in need. As we were at our evening prayers, begging for His mercy, it so happened, before
habiting a comparatively cold country, and extending, according to Gabriel Soares, along some seventy miles of coast, from the Rio Cananéa to the Porto dos Fatos; they occupied the littoral of Rio Grande and Sta. Catharina, and the Manga (channel) between that island and the main. They destroyed an expedition of eighty men sent in 1583 by Martim Affonso to explore the interior of Cananéa, and to prospect for gold mines. A warlike race, they fought in the open field, and when worsted they fled to the bush, where their enemies did not follow them. Their food was fish, game, and manioc, and they were not cannibals. To keep out the cold, which is sometimes severe in those regions, they built their houses of taipa (swish), roofed with tree-bark, and they wore two skins of the beasts killed for food, one before and the other behind (Jaboatam).