The sea trader, his friends and enemies . s, but it was a month before the people came back from thewars. They came down the river in canoes, havmg had goodsuccess. At length the King arrived with the corpse of hisbrother, who was killed in the fight. He put off his burial for afortnight, till he had settled affairs with us, and also givenaudience to his brothers embassadors, who were waiting for Mackett, hearing of his return, came up to town again wellattended, with his trumpeter sounding before him . and thenall we white men, as well Captain Burgess, and the rest, as thosewho came
The sea trader, his friends and enemies . s, but it was a month before the people came back from thewars. They came down the river in canoes, havmg had goodsuccess. At length the King arrived with the corpse of hisbrother, who was killed in the fight. He put off his burial for afortnight, till he had settled affairs with us, and also givenaudience to his brothers embassadors, who were waiting for Mackett, hearing of his return, came up to town again wellattended, with his trumpeter sounding before him . and thenall we white men, as well Captain Burgess, and the rest, as thosewho came with us, marched in order two abreast, the trumpetersounding before the Captain, with a crowd of black mob afterus, the shells blowing and drums beating in the Kings pallisadeto complement him. Deaan Toke Offu, who knew how to treatwhite men, had ordered two stools for the Captain and surgeonto sit on. After the usual complements of Salamonger umhay o 3 y -^ o ^ H- 0) C H s <^ oo. IN THE EASTERN SEAS i6i reciprocally had passed, I being interpreter, we settled thematter of trade, and then the Captain made presents of a gunor two, etc., and the King presented him with a slave, etc. Healso gave me a girl of twelve years old, which I sold immediatelyto John Pro. They remained to make the Kings Court look grand ata reception of ambassadors from another potentate, andthen the slaves were delivered. K the scene had been theIsland of Sumatra, the goods bought had been gums andspices, and the great man whose permission to trade waS tobe obtained by respectful address and acceptable present,all would have been done in just the same way down to thetrumpeter. Till the eighteenth century had begun, theships of the East India Company carried trumpeters whowere the best paid of the petty officers. It was their func-tion to add dignity to the approach of the Captain as hecame, well-attended, and well-armed, with his weather eyelifting to detect signs of possible treachery, to
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidseatraderhis, bookyear1912
