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some kind of covering that nature had given me. He blew my hairs
aside to take a better view of my face. He called his hinds about
him, and asked them, as I afterwards learned, whether they had ever
seen in the fields any little creature that resembled me. He then
placed me softly on the ground upon all fours, but I got
immediately up, and walked slowly backward and forward, to let
those people see I had no intent to run away. They all sat down in
a circle about me, the better to observe my motions. I pulled off
my hat, and made a low bow towards the farmer. I fell on my knees,
and lifted up my hands and eyes, and spoke several words as loud as
I could: I took a purse of gold out of my pocket, and humbly
presented it to him. He received it on the palm of his hand, then
applied it close to his eye to see what it was, and afterwards
turned it several times with the point of a pin (which he took out
of his sleeve,) but could make nothing of it. Whereupon I made a
sign that he should place his hand on the ground. I then took the
purse, and, opening it, poured all the gold into his palm. There
were six Spanish pieces of four pistoles each, beside twenty or
thirty smaller coins. I saw him wet the tip of his little finger
upon his tongue, and take up one of my largest pieces, and then
another; but he seemed to be wholly ignorant what they were. He
made me a sign to put them again into my purse, and the purse again
into my pocket, which, after offering it to him several times, I
thought it best to do.

The farmer, by this time, was convinced I must be a rational
creature. He spoke often to me; but the sound of his voice pierced
my ears like that of a water-mill, yet his words were articulate
enough. I answered as loud as I could in several languages, and he
often laid his ear within two yards of me: but all in vain, for we
were wholly unintelligible to each other. He then sent his
servants to their work, and taking his handkerchief out of his
pocket, he doubled and spread it on his left hand, which he placed
flat on the ground with the palm upward, making me a sign to step
into it, as I could easily do, for it was not above a foot in
thickness. I thought it my part to obey, and, for fear of falling,
laid myself at full length upon the handkerchief, with the
remainder of which he lapped me up to the head for further
security, and in this manner carried me home to his house. There
he called his wife, and showed me to her; but she screamed and ran
back, as women in England do at the sight of a toad or a spider.
However, when she had a while seen my behaviour, and how well I
observed the signs her husband made, she was soon reconciled, and
by degrees grew extremely tender of me.

It was about twelve at noon, and a servant brought in dinner. It
was only one substantial dish of meat (fit for the plain condition
of a husbandman,) in a dish of about four-and-twenty feet diameter.
The company were, the farmer and his wife, three children, and an

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