He next anchored at the island of Guadaloupe and sent the boats on shore well armed.  These were opposed by a great number of women, who came out of a wood armed with bows and arrows and decorated with feathers; seeing whom the people in the boats kept aloof, and sent two women of Hispaniola on shore by swimming to parley with the natives; who, understanding that the Christians only desired to have provisions in exchange for such commodities as they had to barter, desired them to go with their ships to the north side of the island where their husbands then were, who would furnish them with what they wanted.  The ships did accordingly, and sailing close to the shore saw abundance of people, who came down to the sea-side and discharged their arrows in vain against our people, setting up loud cries, but their weapons all fell short.  When our boats well armed and full of men drew near the shore, the Indians retired into an ambush, whence they sallied forth to hinder our people from landing; but terrified by some discharges of cannon from the ships, they fled into the woods, abandoning their houses and goods, when the Christians took and destroyed all they found.  Being acquainted with the Indian method of making bread, they fell to work and made enough to supply their want, as they found abundance of materials[5].

Among other things which they found in the Indian houses on this island, were parrots, honey, wax, and iron, of which last they had hatchets[6]:  and they likewise found looms like those used in Europe for weaving tapestry[7], in which the natives weave their tents.  Their houses, instead of the ordinary round forms which had been hitherto met with in the West Indies, were square; and in one of them the Spaniards found the arm of a man roasting at a fire upon a spit.  While the bread was making, the admiral dispatched forty men into the country to examine into its nature and productions, who returned next day with ten women and three boys all the rest of the natives having fled into the woods.  One of these women was the wife of a cacique, who was exceedingly nimble and had been taken with very great difficulty by a man of the Canaries:  She might even have got from him, but observing him to be alone she thought to have taken him, and closed with him for that purpose, and even got him down and had almost stifled him, had not some others of the Christians come to his aid.  The less of these women are swathed with cotton cloth from the ancle to the knee, which gives them a very thick appearance; and they gird these ornaments, which they call Coiro, and consider as very genteel, so tightly that the leg appears very thin when they happen to slip off[8].  The same swaths are used both by men and women in Jamaica upon the smaller parts of their arms up to the armpits, similar to the old-fashioned sleeves in Spain.