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saw a great crowd of people swimming towards us from the houses without any suspicion. At this juncture some old women showed themselves at the doorways of the huts, wailing and tearing their hair, as if in great distress. From this we began to be suspicious, and had recourse to our weapons, when suddenly the young girls, who were in our boats, threw themselves into the sea, and the canoes at the same time moved away, the people in them assailing us with their bows and arrows. "Those who came swimming towards us brought each a lance, concealed as much as possible under the water, and their treachery being thus discovered, we began not only to defend ourselves, but to act severely on the defensive. We overturned many of the canoes with our boats, and making considerable slaughter among them they soon abandoned the canoes altogether and swam for the shore. Fifteen or twenty were killed, and many wounded, on their side, while on ours five were slightly wounded, all the rest escaping by divine Providence, and these five being quickly cured. We took prisoners two of their girls and three men, and on entering their huts found one sick man and two old women. Returning to our boats and thence to the ships, with the five prisoners, we put irons upon the feet of each, excepting the two young females; yet when night came the two girls and one of the men escaped, in the most artful manner in the world. "The next day we concluded to depart from this port, and at length came to anchor at about eighty leagues distance, and found another tribe of people whose customs and language were very different from those we had last seen. We determined to land, seeing there a great multitude numbering about four thousand. They did not wait to receive us, but fled precipitately to the woods, abandoning all their things. We leaped ashore, and taking the path which led to the wood, found their tents within the space of a bow-shot, where they had made a great fire and two of them were cooking their food, roasting many animals of various kinds. "We noticed that they were roasting a certain animal that looked like a serpent; it had no wings, and was so disgusting in appearance that we were astonished at its deformity. As we went through their huts or t
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