These Caribs carried off both men and women on their robbing expeditions.  They slaughtered and ate the men, and kept the women as slaves; they were, in short, incredibly cruel.  Three of the captive boys ran away and joined the Spaniards.

They had twice sent out expeditions after the lost captain, Diego Marquez, and another party had returned without news of him, on the very day on which he and his men came in.  They brought with them ten captives, boys and women.  They were received with great joy.  “He and those that were with him, arrived so destroyed by the mountain, that it was pitiful to see them.  When they were asked how they had lost themselves, they said that it was the thickness of the trees, so great that they could not see the sky, and that some of them, who were mariners, had climbed up the trees to look at the star (the Pole-star) and that they never could see it.”

One of the accounts of this voyage(*) relates that the captive women, who had taken refuge with the Spaniards, were persuaded by them to entice some of the Caribs to the beach.  “But these men, when they had seen our people, all struck by terror, or the consciousness of their evil deeds, looking at each other, suddenly drew together, and very lightly, like a flight of birds, fled away to the valleys of the woods.  Our men then, not having succeeded in taking any cannibals, retired to the ships and broke the Indians’ canoes.”

     (*) That of Peter Martyr.

They left Guadeloupe on Sunday, the tenth of November.  They passed several islands, but stopped at none of them, as they were in haste to arrive at the settlement of La Navidad in Hispaniola, made on the first voyage.  They did, however, make some stay at an island which seemed well populated.  This was that of San Martin.  The Admiral sent a boat ashore to ask what people lived on the island, and to ask his way, although, as he afterwards found, his own calculations were so correct that he did not need any help.  The boat’s crew took some captives, and as it was going back to the ships, a canoe came up in which were four men, two women and a boy.  They were so astonished at seeing the fleet, that they remained, wondering what it could be, “two Lombard-shot from the ship,” and did not see the boat till it was close to them.  They now tried to get off, but were so pressed by the boat that they could not.  “The Caribs, as soon as they saw that flight did not profit them, with much boldness laid hands on their bows, the women as well as the men.  And I say with much boldness, because they were no more than four men and two women, and ours more than twenty-five, of whom they wounded two.  To one they gave two arrow-shots in the breast, and to the other one in the ribs.  And if we had not had shields and tablachutas, and had not come up quickly with the boat and overturned their canoe, they would have shot the most of our men with their arrows.  And after their canoe was overturned, they remained in the water swimming, and at times getting foothold, for there were some shallow places there.  And our men had much ado to take them, for they still kept on shooting as they could.  And with all this, not one of them could be taken, except one badly wounded with a lance-thrust, who died, whom thus wounded they carried to the ships.”