We Returned Therefore To Our Ships, The Seven Friendly
Natives Being Greatly Rejoiced At Our Victory.
Next day we saw an immense number of the islanders collecting on the shore,
sounding horns and other instruments used by them in war, all painted and
adorned with feathers, so that it was wonderful to behold them.
It was
again determined in council that we should go on shore in force, and
should treat the natives as enemies if they rejected our friendship. We
accordingly landed in a body, unopposed by the islanders, who seemed
afraid of our cannon. Our force consisted on this occasion of four bodies
of fifty-seven men, each under its proper commander, and we had a long and
severe engagement with the natives hand to hand. After many of them were
slain, they at length took to flight, and we pursued them to one of their
villages, where we took twenty-five prisoners, and burned the village; and
we killed and wounded a great many more on our return towards the ships.
On our side one only was slain in this fight, and twenty-two wounded, all
of whom, by the blessing of God, recovered from their wounds. It was now
determined to return into Spain: wherefore the seven men who had
accompanied us from the continent, of whom five were wounded in the battle,
embarked in a canoe which we seized at this place, and returned to their
own country, very joyful for the vengeance we had taken of their cruel
enemies, and full of admiration at our war-like prowess. On this occasion
we gave them seven of our prisoners, three men and four women. Proceeding
from this place in our voyage to Spain, we arrived at Cadiz on the 15th
October 1498, carrying with us 222 prisoners whom we had taken during the
voyage, all of whom we sold. These are all the circumstances worthy of
notice which occurred during our first voyage.
[1] It is highly probable that the date is here falsified by error, or
rather purposely to give a pretext for having discovered the continent
of the New World before Columbus; for we are assured by Harris, II. 37,
that the real date of this voyage was 1499. Alonzo Hojeda and Americus
Vespucius were furnished by Fonseca, bishop of Burgos, with charts and
projects of discovery made by Columbus, whose honour and interest the
bishop was eager to destroy by this surreptitious invasion of his
rights as admiral and viceroy of the West Indies. - E.
[2] In the original, having the wind between south and south-west. It is
often impossible to ascertain, as here, from the equivocal language of
the original, whether the author intends to express the course of the
voyage or the direction of the wind. The course of the voyage from
Cadiz to the Cananaries, whither Americus was now bound, certainly was
towards the direction expressed in the text, and to this course the
wind indicated is adverse.
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