These Are
Like, The Pattern Of A Chalice, Some Bigger And Some Less, And Weighed
About Twelve Ducats More Or Less, And The Indians Wear Them Hanging From
Their Necks By A String As We Do Relics.
Being now very far from the ships,
without having found any port along the coast, or any river larger
Than
that of Belem on which to settle his colony, the lieutenant came back on
the 24th of February, bringing with him a considerable value in gold which
he had acquired by barter during his journey.
Immediately on his return preparations were made for his stay, and eighty
men were appointed to remain with him. These were divided into gangs of
ten men each, and began to build houses on the bank of the Belem river on
the right hand going up, about a cannon-shot from its mouth, and the
infant colony was protected by surrounding it with a trench. The mouth of
this river is marked by a small hill. The houses were all built of timber
and covered with palm leaves, which grew abundantly along the banks of the
river; and besides the ordinary houses for the colony, a large house was
built to serve as a magazine and store-house, into which several pieces of
cannon, powder, provisions, and other necessaries for the use and support
of the planters were put. But the wine, biscuit, oil, vinegar, cheese, and
a considerable supply of grain were left in the ship Gallega as the safest
place; which was to be left with the lieutenant for the service of the
colony, with all its cordage, nets, hooks and other tackle; for, as has
been already said, there is vast abundance of fish in every river of that
coast, several sorts at certain seasons running along the coast in shoals,
on which the people of the country live more than upon flesh, for though
there are some beasts of different sorts, there are by no means enough to
maintain the inhabitants.
The customs of these Indians are for the most part much the same as those
of Hispaniola and the neighbouring islands; but those people of Veragua
and the country about it, when they talk to one another are constantly
turning their backs and always chewing an herb, which we believed to be
the reson that their teeth were rotten and decayed. Their food is mostly
fish, which they take with nets, and with hooks made of tortoiseshell,
which they cut with a thread as if they were sawing, in the same manner as
is done in the islands. They have another way of catching some very small
fishes, which are called Titi in Hispaniola. At certain times these are
driven towards the shore by the rains, and are so persecuted by the larger
fish that they are forced up to the surface in shoal water, where the
Indians take as many of them as they have a mind by means of little matts
or small meshed nets. They wrap these up singly in certain leaves, and
having dried them in an oven they will keep a great while. They also catch
pilchards in the same manner; for at certain times these fly with such
violence from the pursuit of the large fish, that they will leap out of
the water two or three paces on the dry land, so that they have nothing to
do but take them as they do the Titi. These pilchards are taken after
another manner: They raise a partition of palm-tree leaves two yards high
in the middle of a canoe, fore and aft as the seamen call it, or from stem
to stern; then plying about the river they make a great noise, beating the
shores with their paddles, and then the pilchards, to fly from the other
fish, leap into the canoe, where hitting against the partition they fall
in, and by this means they often take vast numbers[15]. Several sorts of
fish pass along the coast in vast shoals, whereof immense quantities are
taken; and these will keep a long time after being roasted or dried in the
way already mentioned.
These Indians have also abundance of maize, a species of grain which grows
in an ear or hard head like millet, and from which they make a white and
red wine, as beer is made in England, mixing it with their spice as it
suits their palate, having a pleasant taste like sharp brisk wine. They
also make another sort of wine from certain trees like palms which have
prickly trunks like thorns: This wine is made from the pith of these palms,
which resemble squeezed palmitoes, and from which they extract the juice
and boil it up with water and spice. They make another wine from a fruit
which grows likewise in Guadaloup, resembling a large pine-apple. This is
planted in large fields, and the plant is a sprout growing from the top of
the fruit, like that which grows from a cabbage or lettuce. One plant
lasts in bearing for three or four years. They likewise make wines from
other sorts of fruit; particularly from one that grows upon very high
trees, which is as big as a large lemon, and has several stones like nuts,
from two to nine in each, not round but long like chesnuts. The rind of
this fruit is like a pomegranate, and when first taken from the tree it
resembles it exactly, save only that it wants the prickly circle at the
top. The taste of it is like a peach; and of them some are better than
others, as is usual in other fruits. There are some of these in the
islands, where they are named Mamei by the Indians.
All things being settled for the Christian colony and ten or twelve houses
built and thatched, the admiral wished to have sailed for Spain; but he
was now threatened by even a greater danger from want of water in the
river, than that he had formerly experienced by the inundation.
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