rebels according to their merits, the Admiral explained that
those men who dared thus to accuse him were guilty of misdemeanours
and crimes; for they were debauchees, profligates, thieves, seducers,
ravishers, vagabonds. They respected nothing and were perjurers and
liars, already condemned by the tribunals, or fearful, owing to their
numerous crimes, to appear before them. They had formed a faction
amongst themselves, given over to violence and rapine; lazy,
gluttonous, caring only to sleep and to carouse. They spared nobody;
and having been brought to the island of Hispaniola originally to do
the work of miners or of camp servants, they now never moved a step
from their houses on foot, but insisted on being carried about the
island upon the shoulders of the unfortunate natives, as though they
were dignitaries of the State.[1] Not to lose practice in the shedding
of blood, and to exercise the strength of their arms, they invented a
game in which they drew their swords, and amused themselves in
cutting off the heads of innocent victims with one sole blow. Whoever
succeeded in more quickly landing the head of an unfortunate islander
on the ground with one stroke, was proclaimed the bravest, and as
such was honoured.[2] Such were the mutual accusations bandied about
between the Admiral and the partisans of Roldan, not to mention many
other imputations.

[Note 1: _Ab insularibus namque miseris pensiles per totam
insulam, tanquam aediles curules, feruntur_.]

[Note 2: See Las Casas, _Brevissima Relacion_, English
translation, pub. by G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1909.]

Meanwhile the Admiral, desiring to put a stop to the dangerous attacks
of the Ciguana tribe which had revolted under the leadership of
Guarionex, sent his brother the Adelantado with ninety foot-soldiers
and some horsemen against them. It may be truthfully added that about
three thousand of the islanders who had suffered from the invasions of
the Ciguana tribe, who were their sworn enemies, joined forces with
the Spaniards. The Adelantado led his troops to the bank of a great
river which waters the plain between the sea and the two extremes of
the mountain chain of Ciguana, of which we have already spoken.
He surprised two of the enemy's spies who were concealed in the
underbrush, one of whom sprang into the sea, and, swimming across the
river at its mouth, succeeded in escaping to his own people. From the
one who was captured, it was learned that six thousand nat