66 The Rice Institute Pamphlet
shoare, to see if there were there any people, or no, and
going to the toppe of the Island, we had sight of seven
boates, which came rowing from the East side, toward that
Island: whereupon we returned aboord againe: at length we
sent our boate with five men in her, to see whither they
rowed, and so with a white cloth brought one of their boates
with their men along the shoare, rowing after our boate, till
such time as they sawe our ship, and then they rowed a
shoare: then I went on shoare my selfe, and gave every of
them a threadden point, and brought one of them aboord of
me, where hee did eate and drinke, and then carried him on
shoare againe. Whereupon all the rest came aboord with
their boates, being nineteene persons, and they spake, but
we understoode them not. They bee like to Tartars, with
long blacke hake, broad faces, and flatte noses, and tawnie in
colour, wearing Seale skinnes, and so doe the women, not
differing in the fashion, but the women are marked in the
face with blewe Streekes downe the cheekes, and round
about the eyes. Their boates are made all of Seales skinnes,
with a keele of wood within the skin; the proportion of them
is like a Spanish shallop, save only they be flat in the
bottome, and sharpe at both ends.”12
It is interesting to see what the perspicacious Camden
made of this report of Hall’s (which he used), in view of his
position in the sixteenth and seventeenth century contro-
versy about primitivism. Frobisher, he said, “found men of
blacke hayre, broad faces, flat wry noses, of a swart and
tawny colour, clothed with Sea-Calves skinnes, and the
women were painted about the eyes and the balls of the
Cheeke with a deepe azure colour, like the ancient Britans.
”13
According to Michael Lok’s version of the first voyage,