their
little boats after fish, and to catch and eat them raw. Their boats
are very narrow, and have only a counterweight at the opposite end,
where they carry their sail. The sail is lateen, and woven from palms,
in these craft do they venture forth intrepidly through those seas,
from island to island, so that one would think that they had a treaty
with wind and water. The ships en route to the Filipinas pass through
these islands, at different latitudes at various times. So many boats
go out to meet them, that they quite surround the ships. The natives
try to trade water and the products of their islands for iron, the
substance that they esteem most; but, if they are able to steal the
iron, without giving anything for it, they do so. It is necessary to
aim an arquebus (which they fear greatly) at them in order to get
the article returned. And to induce them to leave the ships free,
there is no better method than to fire the arquebus in the air, the
reverberations of which cause them to hide, fear, and vanish. While
the ship in which I took passage was passing one of the islands,
many small boats came out as usual. Among them came one belonging to
a robust youth, who was coming to look for a Castilian, who had been
his captive, as he desired to see him. This Spaniard, with others
who escaped from the ship "Santa Margarita" (which was wrecked on
those islands), lived among those barbarians, until, by good fortune,
the ships with succor passed there, and they embarked in them. The
Spaniard, who had been the slave of this Indian, was with us. As soon
as the latter saw him, he boarded our vessel fearlessly. And still with
no signs of fear, he went among our men and threw himself into the
arms of the man whom he knew, and who had eaten his bread and lived
in his house. He was quite covered with marks of teeth; and when the
Spaniard, who knew something of their language and customs because of
his stay among them, was asked the reason, he said that that native
had but just been married, and the dowry that he had given was to
receive those bites from his wife without murmuring. In that way do the
women elect and choose their husbands. The native was loaded down with
scissors, knives and iron. With all this load he dived into the water,
and at the moment he was thought to have gone to the bottom, because
of the weight of his load, he reappeared quite at his ease, placed
his load in his little craft, then got in himself, and hoist