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 through hatred or fear of the Caribs, when the boats returned some time afterwards for wood and water, the women got into them and requested to be carried back to the ships, and gave the seamen to understand by signs that those people eat men and make slaves of the women, and therefore they would not remain with them. Yielding to their entreaties, the seamen brought them back, with two children and a young man who had escaped from the Caribs; these people thinking themselves safer in the hands of strangers whom they had never seen or heard of, than among the cruel and wicked Caribs who had eaten their husbands and children, but who are said not to eat women, whom they keep as slaves. One of the women said there were many islands to the south, some inhabited and others not, which they severally named Giamachi, Cairvaco, Huino, Buriari, Arubeira, and Sixibei. They said that the continent was very large, and both they and the inhabitants of Hispaniola named it Zuanta; saying, that in former times canoes had come from that land to the islands to barter with abundance of lads, of whom there were two thirds in an island not far distant[7]. They also said that the king of the island, from which they fled, was gone with ten large canoes and 300 men to make incursions into the neighbouring islands to take prisoners to eat. The women likewise gave information where Hispaniola lay; for though the admiral had inserted it in his chart, yet he was inclined to hear what the natives of these islands knew respecting it for his better guidance.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 82 of 415
Words from 43250 to 43757 of 219607