The natives now brought at once to the Dutch about 500 live fowls, every way the same with the ordinary poultry of Europe, together with a great quantity of red and white roots and potatoes, which these islanders use instead of bread.  They brought also several hundred sugar-canes, and a great quantity of pisans, which are a sort of figs as large as gourds covered by a green rind, the pulp of which is as sweet as honey.  The leaves of the tree on which these figs grow are six or eight feet long and three broad, and there are sometimes an hundred of these pisans on one bough.  The Dutch saw no quadrupeds of any kind, yet supposed there might be cattle and other beasts in the interior, as on shewing some hogs to the islanders, they expressed by signs that they had seen such animals before.  They used pots to dress their meat in; and it appeared that every family or tribe among them dwelt in a separate village.  The huts or cabins composing these villages were from forty to sixty feet long, by six or eight feet broad, made of upright poles, having the interstices filled up with loam or fat earth, and covered at top with palm leaves.  They drew most of their subsistence from the earth by cultivation, the land being portioned out into small plantations very neatly divided and staked out.  While the Dutch were there, almost all the fruits and roots were in full maturity, and the island seemed to abound in good things.  In their houses there were not many moveables, and those they had were of no value, except some red and white quilts or cloths, which served them in the day for mantles, and at night for coverlets.  The stuff of which these were composed felt as soft as silk, and was probably of their own manufacture.

The natives of this island were in general a brisk, slender, active, well-made people, very swift of foot, and seemed of sweet tempers, and modest dispositions, but timorous and faint-hearted; for whenever they brought fowls or other provisions to the Dutch, they threw themselves on their knees, and immediately on delivering their presents retired in all haste.  They were mostly as brown-complexioned as Spaniards, some among them being almost black, while others were white, and others again had their skins entirely red, as if sun-burnt.  Their ears hung down to their shoulders, and some had large white bales hanging to them, which they seemed to consider as a great ornament.  Their bodies were painted all over with the figures of birds and other animals, on some much better executed than on others.[5] All their women had artificial bloom on their cheeks, but of a much deeper crimson than is known in Europe, and the Dutch could not discover what this colour was composed of.  They wore little hats on their heads made of straw or reeds, and had no other covering than the quilts or mantles formerly mentioned.[6] The women were by no means extremely modest, for they invited the Dutchmen into their houses by signs, and when they sat by them would throw off