ke lilies or aloes, wild about the fields. They also saw other
sorts of fruits and herbs different from ours. In the houses there were
beds or hammocks made of cotton nets, with bows and arrows, and other
articles; but our people took none of these things away, that the Indians
might be the less afraid of the Christians. What they most admired and
wondered at was that they found an iron pan in one of the houses; though I
am disposed to believe that the rocks and fire-stones of the country being
of the colour of bright iron, a person of indifferent judgment may have
taken it for iron without sufficient examination; for there never was any
iron found afterwards among these people, and I find no authority from the
admiral for this incident on his own knowledge, and as he used to write
down daily whatever happened and was reported to him, he may have set down
this among other particulars related by those who had been on shore.[6]
Even if it actually were iron, it may be thus accounted for: The natives
of Guadaloup, being Caribs, were accustomed to make plundering expeditions
as far as Hispaniola, and might have procured that pan from the Christians
or the natives of that island. It is likewise possible that they might
have carried off some of the iron from the wreck of the admirals former
ship; or some of that wreck containing iron might have been drifted by the
winds and currents from Hispaniola. Be this as it may, the people neither
took away the pan nor any thing else.

Next day the admiral sent two boats on shore, to endeavour to procure some
person who might be able to give him some account of the country, and to
inform him in what direction Hispaniola lay. Each of the boats brought off
a youth, who agreed in saying that they were not of that island, but of
another which they called _Borriquen_, now St John; and that the
inhabitants of Guadaloupe were Caribs or Canibals, and had taken them
prisoners from their own island. Soon afterwards, the boats returned on
shore to bring off some Christians who had been left, and found six women
who had fled to them from the Caribs, and came off willingly to the ships.
To allure the Indians, the admiral would not keep them, but set them on
shore against their wills, giving them some glass beads and bells. This
was not done unadvisedly, for as soon as they landed, the Caribs even in
sight of the Christians, took away all the trinkets which had been given
them. Therefore, either throug