It is curious
to observe how these early Christians met the Indians with the same
weapons of distrust and fraud which have proved so effective with us in
civilizing them since.
In two or three hours the savages appeared in great numbers, bloody and
furious, and in their chronic state of foaming at the mouth. "They
rushed in upon us, shouting 'Nickalees? Nickalees?' (Un Ingles.) To
which we replied 'Espania.' But they cried the more fiercely 'No Espania,
Nickalees!' and being greatly enraged thereat, seized upon all Trunks
and Chests and our cloathes upon our Backs, leaving us each only a pair
of old Breeches, except Robert Barrow, my wife, and child, from whom
they took nothing." The king, or Cassekey, as Dickenson calls him,
distinguished by a horse-tail fastened to his belt behind, took
possession of their money and buried it, at which the good Quaker spares
not his prayers for punishment on all pagan robbers, quite blind to the
poetic justice of the burial, as the money had been made on land stolen
from the savages. The said Cassekey also set up his abode in their tent;
kept all his tribe away from the woman and child and aged man; kindled
fires; caused, as a delicate attention, the only hog remaining on the
wreck to be killed and brought to them for a midnight meal; and, in
short, comported himself so hospitably, and with such kindly
consideration toward the broad-brimmed Quaker, that we are inclined to
account him the better-bred fellow of the two, in spite of his scant
costume of horse-tail and belt of straw.
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