Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	air_n	cold_a	moist_a	2,451	5	10.2857	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70052	A new discovery of Terra incognita Australis, or, The southern world, by James Sadeur, a French-man, who being cast there by a shipwrack, lived 35 years in that country and gives a particular description of the manners, customs, religion, laws, studies and wars of those southern people, and of some animals peculiar to that place ... translated from the French copy ...; Terre australe connue. English	Foigny, Gabriel de, ca. 1630-1692.	1693 (1693)	Wing F1395; ESTC R20648	83,070	196

third is Salt which they call G the fourth is Water which they call I and the fifth is Earth which they call U. All their Adjectives and their Epithets are expressed by so many single Consonants of which they have a greater number than the Europeans Every Consonant signifies a Quality that belongs to the things signified by the Vowels Thus B signifies Clear C Hot D Disagreeable F Dry and by these Explications they so perfectly from their words that assoon as a Man hears them pronounced he presently conceives the nature of things they signifie as for example they call the Stars AeB a word which signifies in one Breath the two chief Elements or simple Bodies of which they are composed and withal that they are Luminous They call the Sun Aab the Birds Oef which signifies at once that they are composed of a dry salt and airy substance They call a Man Vez which signifies a substance partly airy and partly Earthy tempered with some moisture the same method they observe in the composition of other Names The advantage of this way of speaking is that by this means a Man becomes a Philosopher by learning the first words he pronounces and that one can name nothing at the same time which would pass for a miraculous thing with any one that knew not their Alphabet nor the composition of their words And if their way of speaking be admirable their method of writing is much more they use only points to express their Vowels which points are distinguish'd only by their Situation They have Five places for them the uppermost signifying A the second E and so forward As for example A E I O U. And though it seems to us very difficult to distinguish them yet use has made it very easie to them they have 36 Consonants 24 of which are remarkable they are little strokes that are made round about the points and signifie according to the order of their several places as for example E B signifies clear Air I C Hot Water I X Cold Water U L Moist Earth A F Dry fire E S White Air and so all the rest they have about 18 or 19 more which we have no Consonants in Europe that can express The more we consider that way of writing the more secrets we shall find in it to admire B signifies clear or bright C hot X cold L moist F dry S white N black T green D disagreeable P sweet Q pleasant R bitter M desirable G evil Z high H low J consonant red A join'd with 2 peaceable Thus assoon as they hear or pronounce a word they apprehend at the same time the nature of the thing signified by it as when they write this word Ipin they presently understand by it an Apple both sweet and delicious and Izd a bad and disagreeable Fruit c. When they teach a Child they explain to him all the Elements and the nature of all things signified by the words he pronounces Which is of wonderful advantage as well to the publick as to particular persons because as soon as they know how to read which is commonly at three years old they apprehend at the same time the Properties of all manner of Beings They attain to perfection in reading at ten years and are skilled in all the Secrets of their Letters at fourteen They understand all the difficulties of Philosophy at twenty and from twenty to twenty five they apply themselves to the contemplation of the Stars and they divide that Study into three parts the first concerns the Revolution of the Stars the second their distinction and the third their qualities with their Reasonings thereupon which are quite different from those of our Europeans upon that Subject But this being a Matter purely Philosophical it is no proper place here to enter into any particular explication of it From twenty five till twenty eight years of Age they imploy themselves in studying the History of their Country and 't is only in that one point they shew a weakness of mind like to that of other People as well in respect of the great Antiquity to which they extend their Original as of the fabulous things they relate of the first Men from which they pretend themselves descended For they count above 12000 Revolutions of Solstices since the beginning of their Republick They pretend to derive their Original from HAAB that is a God who they say produced three Men from whom all the rest descended They have some Records written upon old Barks of Trees that contain 8000 Revolutions of their History which are written in the form of Annals the rest is comprehended in 48 Volumes of a prodigious bigness but all that is reported in them has more of the appearance of Romantick Prodigies than of real historical Events and is more wonderful than credible For if all they relate be true the Stars are multiplied by two thirds more than they were at first the Sun grown bigger by one half and the Moon on the contrary shrunk much less the Sea has changed its place and a thousand other like things have happened contrary to all appearance of probability As for us Europeans and the rest of Mankind they make our Race to begin not 'till 5000 Revolutions after them and the Original which they give us is altogether Ridiculous for they Report That a Serpent of an unmeasurable bigness and of an amphibious nature which they call Ams throwing himself upon a Woman while she was asleep and having enjoyed her without doing her any other mischief the Woman waking towards the end of the action was struck with such a horror at it that in a fright she threw her self into the Sea but that the Serpent leaping in after her swam by her and keeping her above water carried her to a neighbouring Island where the Woman recovering her fright and being moved with the strange friendship shown her by that Animal repented of her despair and was wrought upon to use all endeavours to preserve her life and accordingly sought about that Desart for all that might contribute to her Nourishment and the Serpent on his side brought her all he could find At last this Woman was delivered of two Children the one a Boy and the other a Girl Upon which the Serpent redoubled bis care and never ceased going up and down to look for Provisions to feed the Mother and the Children and when he could not meet with the Fruits which they ordinarily fed upon he would take Fish and sometimes small Animals and bring them to eat But as those Children grew up they shewed every day more and more visible marks of malice and brutality which so grieved the Mother that nothing could appease her sorrow The Serpent thereupon taking notice of her trouble and thinking she pined after her own Country after he had endeavoured to comfort ber without any effect he made her understand by signs that if she had a mind to return to her own

A New Discovery OF Terra Incognita Australis OR THE Southern World BY James Sadeur a French-man WHO Being Cast there by a Shipwrack lived 35 years in that Country and gives a particular Description of the Manners Customs Religion Laws Studies and Wars of those Southern People and of some Animals peculiar to that Place with several other Rarities These Memoirs were thought so curious that they were kept Secret in the Closet of a late Great Minister of State and never Published till now since his Death Translated from the French Copy Printed at Paris by Publick Authority April 8. 1693. Imprimatur Charles Hein London Printed for John Dunton at the Raven in the Poultry 1693. THE PREFACE OF THE French Publisher THO the surprising Adventures of Mr. Sadeur and the Discovery of the Country of which you are going to read the particulars be things very Extraordinary yet 't is supposed the Reader will not much scruple to believe them when he shall be informed that a Southern unknown Land has been talkt of these 200 Years He will only wonder that since the world is now so well furnished with numbers of such skillful and curious Travellers how it should have continued so long undiscover'd and he will judge not without sufficient Grounds that they which have attempted this discovery have either been Lost in their Voyage or been Killed by the Inhabitants of the Country after they had entred it as Sadeur had been himself had it not been for the signal he gave of a prodigious Bravery and Courage before the eyes of the Australians by fighting against animals of a monstrous strength and bigness which so charmed those people who are naturally very brave themselves that they granted him the priviledge to live among them contrary to the most solemn Laws of their Country The Birth of Sadeur and his Education his Misfortunes and Shipwracks will appear to all the World as effects of a Destiny that designed him to be born for no other purpose but to be conducted afterward into that unknown Country of which we had no true Relation before his time It is true that Magellan attributed to himself the honour of having discovered this Country in the year 1520 under the name of Terra de Fugo or the Land of Five But the Hollanders have clearly convinced us that he discovered certain Islands that depend rather upon America than Australia Mark Paul the Venetian has likewise enjoyed for a considerable time the Glory of this Discovery because that being driven by a Tempest a great way beyond the Island of Java he discovered the Kingdom of Maletur the Province of Beach the Isle of Petau and another Isle which he named the Lesser Java But the Hollanders which have since settled themselves in the Greater Java and who drive all the Commerce there assure us by all their Relations that all the Countries that Pilot saw are nothing but a great cluster of many Islands that no where joyn to the Southern Continent and that is so much the more probable because Ferdinando Galego having Roved all about that Great Sea from the Strait of Magellan to the Molucca Islands reports that it is stowed with such a multitude of Islands that he counted above a thousand It is likewise true that upon comparing the Description that Ferdinando de Quir a Portugal gives of the Southern Continent with that which is contained in this Book it must needs be allowed that he hath made some Discovery of that Country For we read in his eighth Request to the King of Spain that in the Discoveries which he made in the year 1610 of the Southern Country called here Australia he found a Country much more Fertile and Populous than any in Europe that the inhabitants were much Biger and Taller than the Europeans and that they lived much longer than they And Lewis Paes de Morres who was Admiral of the Fleet of the said Ferdinando confirmed to the Councel of Spain the truth of Doaduir's Relation adding that the Air was so healthy in that Country and so conformable to the Temper of Man that people there as freely slept by Moon-light as by Day-light on the bare Earth and that not only without any incommodity but with pleasure That the Fruits there were so excellent and nourishing that the inhabitants sought no other food that they drank a much more pleastant Liquor than Wine that they knew not the use of Cloaths and that the study of Natural Knowledge was there very much Cultivated But notwithstanding all that we must needs grant on the other hand that they had but a very superficial knowledge of that Country and that what they have said of it might serve indeed to stir up the Curiosity that many had already to know it but could no way satisfie the Appetite it had raised in them with any solid and particular Account 'T is therefore to our Sadeur whose Relation here follows that we are wholly obliged for the Discovery of this before Unknown Country And I doubt not but many persons will be surprized that the name of a man to whom the World is so much beholding should lye so long concealed in obscurity as well as the particulars of his Rare Discovery But their surprize will undoubtedly cease when they shall know that the Memoirs from which this Relation was composed were long kept private in the Cabinet of a Late Great Minister of State from whence they could not be had till after his Death A Table of the Chapters CHap. 1. Of Sadeur's Birth and Education Chap. 2. Of Sadeur's Voyage to Congo Chap. 3. Of the accidents which brought Sadeur into Australia Chap. 4. A Description of Australia with a Geographical Map of the said-Country Chap. 5. Of the Constitution of the Australians and of their Customs Chap. 6. Of the Religion of the Australians Chap. 7. Of the Opinion of the Australians concerning this Life Chap. 8. Of the Exercises of the Australians Chap. 9. Of the Australian Tongue and of their Studies Chap. 10. Of the Animals or living Creatures peculiar to Australia Chap. 11. Of Australian Commodities and Rarities that might be useful to Europe Chap. 12. Of the ordinary Wars of the Australians Chap. 13. Of the Return of Sadeur to the Island of Madagascar Chap. 14. Of the stay that Sadeur made in Madagascar and the occurrences that happened in that time A New Discovery OF THE Southern World CHAP. I. Of the Birth and Education of Sadeur AS 't is impossible to reflect upon all the adventures of my Life without admiring the prodigious variety of Events which have accompanied it so I believed I ought to make a Collection and from thence remark all the most considerable Instances for altho I have yet no opportunities to send them into my own Countrey nor see any probability of returning thither yet I believe I cannot do better than commit them to writing for the frequent assistance of my Memory and

without aiming at any thing but the publick Good They employ the next third part of their Day in their Gardens which they cultivate with such art and skill as is unknown in Europe They know how to give such an agreeable sweetness to their Fruits by watering their Trees with certain Liquors that nothing can be eaten more delicious than they Their Flower-Pots are enamell'd with a thousand sorts of Flowers of different beauties that seem to vie with one another in fineness and variety of colours and in the charms of their perfuming smells Their Walks are longer than the Sight can reach and so neatly ordered that nothing of that nature can be more compleat The whole is cut through in all convenient places with a thousand different sorts of Water-Works which are made into Basons Chanels Cascades and all that Art can invent for the pleasure of the Senses that those Gardens are thereby made such really as we fancy them to be sometimes in Idea when we let our Imagination follow the dictates of our luxurious desires The last third part of their Day is allotted for three sorts of very diverting Exercises the first consists in producing what they have newly invented or repeating the Experiments of what they had already shewn but there seldom passes a day but they propose some new Invention upon which they always take care to Register the Name of the Inventor in their Book of publick Curiosities which they esteem one of the greatest honours can be done them and in 32 years time I observed above 5000 of these new Inventions Recorded that would pass for so many Prodigies among us Their second Exercise consists in managing two sorts of Arms one of which is very like our Halberds and the other resembles much our Organ-Pipes They use the former with great agility but yet not with altogether so much dexterity as our Europeans Their Halberts are so massie and strong that they will easily run through the bodies of six Men one behind another They are made of six pieces of Wood seasoned with Sea-water impregnated with some certain Drugs which render them very hard and yet very light The other Arms which I have compared to our Organ-Pipes are composed of ten or twelve Pipes which are furnished with certain Springs at one end which being let go discharge Bullets with so great a force that they pierce through the bodies of six Men one after another at one shot the action of which Spring is so quick and rapid that 't is impossible to fence off its blow but men find themselves shot before they are aware they were aimed at As for their Halberts they exercise them in throwing thirty or forty Paces and that so dextrously that in fifteen throws they seldom miss twice of their mark But their Strength is much more prodigious than their Art for they carry without straining themselves to the weight of six or seven Quintals or hundred weight and pull up Trees by the Roots which we could hardly shake I saw one of them that after he had run through with his Halbert four half men as they call us carried them afterwards upon one of his Shoulders hanging upon his Halbert two before and two behind Their third Exercise consists in throwing certain Balls of three or four different sizes some of which they throw up into the Air and some at Butts or Marks those which they cast into the Air to be well thrown must hit one another in a certain point mark'd out and those which are cast against Butts must pass through a hole in the said Butt which they will often do ten or twelve times together And that which is most to be remarked in these Exercises is that they perform them with much briskness and gayety which yet is tempered with a certain Air of Gravity and Majesty without any disorder or discomposure of mind The Balls they throw one at another are like our Tennis-Balls but softer and less dangerous and the Art of him that throws them consists in hitting him against whom he plays and his Adversary on the other side places all his skill in avoiding the stroke aimed at him and the pleasure of seeing them is so great that there is nothing but People will quit to go to see such a Divertisement For sometimes they capringly leap backward to let the Ball pass by them and sometimes they turn and bend their bodies so many-several ways that there is no Rope-Dancer or Tumbler among us can come near them for agility When he that throws the Ball le ts flie 3 or 4 one after another it is an admirable thing to see the dextrous behaviour of him against whom they are directed who stoops to avoid the one bends himself to escape another receives and throws back the third and the fourth with his-hands and sometimes with his feet which several actions he performs almost all in the same instant because all the Balls being always thrown very straight it necessarily hapens either that all of them hit or that he at whom they are aimed must use an extraordinary dexterity in avoiding or putting them by I was counted very dextrous in Portugal but yet I seemed very unhandy among the Australians and had I not pretended an excuse by reason of the wounds I had received I should have made them think my Nation to be very dull and unactive People CHAP. IX Of the Australian Language and of the Studies of the Australians THE Australians have three ways of expressing themselves as we have in Europe that is by Voice by Signs and by Writing Among these Signs are most familiar with them and I have observed them to converse together several hours without declaring their minds any other way than that They never speak but when it is necessary to make continued Discourses and to express a long Series of Propositions All their Words are Monosyllables and they have but one Conjugation as for Example Af signifies to Love which is thus conjugated in the Present Tense La Pa Ma i. e. I Love thou Lovest he Loves Lla Ppa Mma we Love you Love they Love They have but one Tense for the time past Lga Pga Mga i. e. I have Loved thou hast Loved he has Loved c. The Future is Lda Pda Mda I shall or will Love c. Llda Ppda Mmda we shall or will Love c. Uf in the Astralian Tongue signifies to work which they conjugate thus Lu Pu Mu I work thou workest c. Lgu Pgu Mgu we Work c. and so in the other Tenses They have no Declensions nor Articles and but very few Nouns They express simple substances by one single Vowel and Compound Bodies by the Vowels that signifie the chief Elements of which they are composed They own but five simple Bodies or Elements of which the first and noblest in their esteem is the Fire which they express by the single Vowel A the second is the Air which they call E the