She herself was so much used to the water, that when she first came to France, she could not live without it, and was in use to plunge into it over head and ears, and to continue in it swimming about and diving like an otter, or any other amphibious animal: And when they restrained her from this practice, after she was a little tamed and civilized, she thought her health suffered for want of it.
She supposes she was a child only about seven or eight years of age, when she was carried away from her own country; yet, by that time, she had learnt to swim, to fish, to shoot with the bow and arrow, to climb, and to leap from one tree to another like a squirrel. She was taken up at sea, where she was, with other children, set in a little round canoe, which was covered with a skin that drew about her middle like a purse, and prevented the water from getting in: For she says, it is the manner in her country, to put the children early out to sea in such canoes, in order to accustom them to bear the sea, which breaks over them; and tho' it may overturn the canoe, does not sink it.—When she was taken up, she was put aboard a great ship, and was carried to a warm country, where she was sold for a slave; the person who sold her having first painted her all over black, with
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