During the afternoon some canoes came off in which were a number of
pygmies, but they made no attempt to come aboard of us, remaining, as
they thought, at a safe distance from the ship. In order to convince
them of the error of this, however, and to punish them for their
treachery of the morning, Hartog ordered our brass bow-chaser to be
loaded with grape, and fired amongst them, which caused great
consternation, and sent them back to their woods howling in terror,
taking their dead and wounded with them.
Hartog was determined to explore the range of mountains which we could
see not far distant from the coast, in order to ascertain the truth, or
otherwise, of the existence of rubies in the valleys as set forth in
Marco Polo's account of this country. Although we had carefully looked
for these gems among the ornaments worn by the pygmies, we had not seen
any, from which we concluded that the men spoken of by Polo as having
procured the rubies must have been of a different race, or possibly his
own sailors. Toward evening we observed a large bird in the sky, which
Hartog, with the aid of his spy-glass, pronounced to be a white eagle.
CHAPTER XLII
THE VALLEY OF SERPENTS
We now equipped an expedition to explore the Ruby Mountains, of which I
was appointed leader.
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