Memoir, Descriptive and Explanatory, to Accompany the New Chart of the Ethiopic Or Southern Atlantic Ocean, with the Western Coasts of South-America, from Cape Horn to Panama ...: Composed from a Great Variety of Documents, as Enumerated in the Work

Front Cover
R.H. Laurie, 1822 - Pilots and pilotage - 223 pages
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 21 - 16th of December, 1673, constitutes the Governor and Company the true and absolute Lords and Proprietors of the island, with full legislative power, but, as near as may be, agreeable to the laws of England, and
Page 80 - for a moment of the composure of the monarch ; he appeared to be about thirty-eight years of age, inclined to corpulence, and of a benevolent countenance ; he wore a fillet of aggry beads round his temples, a necklace of gold cockspur-shells, strung by their largest ends, and over his right shoulder a red silk cord, suspended three
Page 79 - Gold and silver pipes and canes dazzled the eye in every direction. Wolves' and rams' heads, as large as life, cast in gold, were suspended from their gold-handled swords, which were held around them in great numbers ; the blades were shaped like round bills, and rusted in blood; the
Page 80 - were seated around, flourishing elephants' tails, curiously mounted. The warriors sat on the ground close to these, and so thickly, as not to admit of our passing without treading on their feet, to which they were perfectly indifferent; their caps were of the skin of the pangolin and leopard, the tails hanging down behind ; their
Page 79 - and silks, and crowned on the top with crescents, pelicans, elephants, barrels, and arms and swords of gold ; they were of various shapes, but mostly dome; and the valances (in some of which small lookingglasses were inserted) fantastically scalloped and fringed; from the fronts of some, the
Page 35 - We found a mass of islands and broken lands, beaten by storms almost perpetual. Yet this is summer ; and, if the winds of winter hold their natural proportion, those who lie but two cables' length from the shore must pass weeks without having any communication with it. it
Page 37 - covered, many fathoms deep, with frozen snow, but more especially the SW coast? The very sides and craggy summits of the lofty mountains were cased with snow and ice; but the quantity which lay in the valleys is incredible ; and, at the hottom of the bays, the coast was terminated by a wall of ice of considerable height.
Page 78 - another : the large open porches of the houses, like the fronts of stages in small theatres, were filled with the better sort of females and children, all impatient to behold white men for the first time; their exclamations were drowned in the firing and music, but their gestures were in character with the scene. When we reached the palace,
Page 79 - The wrists of the drummers were hung with bells, and curiously shaped pieces of iron, which jingled loudly as they were beating. The smaller drums were suspended from the neck by scarfs of red cloth; the horns ([the teeth of young elephants) were ornamented at the mouth-piece with gold, and the
Page 77 - of the tide, at any period of the moon, and continues sometimes only a day or two, sometimes five or six days, and it has been known to last fifteen or sixteen days. There are generally three or four returns of it in every season : it blows with a moderate force, not quite so strong as the

Bibliographic information