another, a young
girl of fourteen, "the which had a good enough presence and beauty for
that country"; but the strength of the woman was so wonderful, that she
gave the three men who held her trouble enough to lift her into the
boat. And seeing how they were kept struggling on the beach, they feared
that some of the people of the country might come down upon them. So one
of them put the child into the boat, and love of it forced the mother to
go likewise, without much more pushing.

Thence they went on, pursues the story, till they came to a river, into
which they made an entrance with a boat, and carried off a woman that
they found in a house. But going up the river somewhat farther, with a
mind to make some good booty, there came out upon them four or five
canoes full of negroes, armed as men who would fight for their country,
whose encounter our men in the boat did not wish to await in face of the
advantage of the enemy, and fearing above all the great peril of
poisoned arrows. So they began to pull down stream as hard as they could
towards the caravel; but as one of the canoes distanced the others and
came up close to them, they turned upon it and in the fight one of the
negroes shot a dart, that wounded the captain, Alvaro Fernandez, in the
foot. But he, as he had been already warned of the poison, drew out the
arrow very quickly and bathed it with acid and oil, and then anointed it
well with theriack, and it pleased God that he passed safely through a
great trouble, though for some days he lay on the point of death. And so
they got back to the caravel.

But though the captain was so badly wounded, the crew did not stop in
following the coast and went on (all this was over quite new ground)
till they came to a certain sand-spit, directly in front of a great bay.
Here they launched a boat, and rowed out to see the land they had come
to, and at once there came out against them full 120 negroes, some with
bows, others with shields and assegais, and when they reached the edge
of the sea, they began to play and dance about, "like men clean wearied
of all sadness, but our men in the boat wishing to be excused from
sharing in that festival of theirs, turned and rowed back to the ship."

Now all this was a good 110 leagues,--320 miles beyond Cape Verde,
"mostly to the south of the aforesaid cape" (that is, about the place of
Sierra Leone on our maps), and this caravel remained a longer time
abroad and went farther than a