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