d;
but whenever they were lucky in repulsing a cannibal invasion for
the purpose of plundering, they cut their prisoners into small bits,
roasted, and greedily ate them; for in war there is alternative good
and bad fortune.

[Note 7: Porto Rico.]

All this was recounted through the native interpreters who had been
taken back to Spain on the first voyage. Not to lose time, the
Spaniards passed by Burichena; nevertheless some sailors, who landed
on the extreme western point of the island to take a supply of fresh
water, found there a handsome house built in the fashion of the
country, and surrounded by a dozen or more ordinary structures, all of
which were abandoned by their owners. Whether the inhabitants betake
themselves at that period of the year to the mountains to escape the
heat, and then return to the lowlands when the temperature is fresher,
or whether they had fled out of fear of the cannibals, is not
precisely known. There is but one king for the whole of the island,
and he is reverently obeyed. The south coast of this island, which the
Spaniards followed, is two hundred miles long.

During the night two women and a young man, who had been rescued from
the cannibals, sprang into the sea and swam to their native island.
A few days later the Spaniards finally arrived at the much-desired
Hispaniola, which is five hundred leagues from the nearest of the
cannibal islands. Cruel fate had decreed the death of all those
Spaniards who had been left there.

There is a coast region of Hispaniola which the natives call Xarama,
and it was from Xarama that Columbus had set sail on his first
voyage, when he was about to return to Spain, taking with him the ten
interpreters of whom I spoke above, of whom only three survived; the
others having succumbed to the change of climate, country, and food.

Hardly were the ships in sight of the coast of Xarama, which Columbus
called Santa Reina,[8] than the Admiral ordered one of these
interpreters to be set at liberty, and two others managed to jump into
the sea and swim to the shore. As Columbus did not yet know the sad
fate of the thirty-eight men whom he had left on the island the
preceding year, he was not concerned at this flight. When the
Spaniards were near to the coast a long canoe with several rowers came
out to meet them. In it was the brother of Guaccanarillo, that king
with whom the Admiral had signed a treaty when he left Hispaniola,
and to whose care he had urgentl