The women of this island were excessively fat, insomuch that some were thicker than a man could grasp round; they all wear their hair long and loose upon their shoulders, nor do they cover any part of their bodies except as before mentioned.  As soon as their children can use their limbs, they give them bows and arrows that they may learn to shoot.  The woman who made so much resistance said that the island was only inhabited by women, and that those who made demonstrations of hindering the landing of our men were all women, except four men who had come there accidentally from another island; for at certain times of the year the men come from the other islands to sport and cohabit with the women of this.  The same customs were followed by the women in another island, called Matrimonio or the Island of Matrimony, and this woman gave an account of these islanders similar to what we read concerning the Amazons; and the admiral believed it because of the strength and courage of these women[9].  It is also said that these women seemed to have clearer understandings than those of the other islands; for in the other islands they only reckon the day by the sun and the nights by the moon, whereas these women reckoned by other stars, saying that it is time to do such and such things when the great bear or certain other stars, as it may be, are due north.

When they had made provision of bread for twenty days besides what they had on board, the admiral resolved to continue his voyage into Spain.  But, considering that the island of Guadaloupe was an inlet to others, he thought fit to send all the women on shore, having first made them some gifts in compensation of the loss they had sustained; except the chief lady, who chose to go into Spain with her daughter along with the other Indians from Hispaniola.  One of these was Cannabo, the chief cacique of that island in the late disturbances, who was himself a Carib and not a native of that island.  Having furnished all the vessels with bread, wood, and water, the admiral set sail on Wednesday the twentieth of April from Guadaloupe, with the wind very scant, keeping near the latitude of twenty-two degrees north:  as at this time they had not found out the method of running away north to meet the S.W. winds.

Having made but little way and the ships being full of people, they began by the twentieth of May to be much afflicted with scarcity of provisions, insomuch that they were reduced to an allowance of six ounces of bread and less than a pint of water for each person daily, and had no other article of provision besides.  Though there were eight or nine pilots in the two ships, yet none of them knew whereabout they were, but the admiral was confident that they were then only a little west of the Azores, whereof he gives the following account in his journal.