f _brazas_ in depth, filled with water. The small weapons
used by these natives are badly tempered iron lances, which become
blunt upon striking a fairly good coat of mail, a kind of broad dagger,
and arrows--which are weapons of little value. Other lances are also
used which are made of fire-hardened palm-wood and are harder than the
iron ones. There is an abundance of a certain very poisonous herb which
they apply to their arrows. Such are the weapons which the natives
of these islands possess and employ. Now as the captain approached
the villages at daybreak, and found them empty, he proceeded through
a grove to the place where the first fort was situated; and, having
come in sight, negotiated with them, asking whether they desired to be
friends of the Spaniards. The natives, confident of their strength,
refused to listen, and began to discharge their culverins and a few
arrows. The captain, seeing that they would not listen to reason,
ordered them to be fired upon. The skirmish lasted in one place or
the other about three hours, since the Spaniards could not assault
or enter the fort because of the moat of water surrounding it. But,
as fortune would have it, the natives had left on the other side,
tied to the fort, a small boat capable of holding twenty men; and
two of our soldiers threw themselves into the water and swam across,
protected by our arquebusiers from the enemy, who tried to prevent
them. This boat having been brought to the side where the Spaniards
were, fifteen soldiers entered it and approached the rampart of the
fort. As soon as these men began to mount the rampart, the Indians
began to flee on the other side, by a passage-way which they had made
for that very purpose. It is true that thirty or forty Moros fought
and resisted the entrance of the Spaniards; but when they saw that
half of our people were already on the wall, and the rest in the act
of mounting, they all turned their backs and fled. A hundred or more
of them were killed, while of our men five were wounded. In this way
was the fort taken, together with fifty or sixty prisoners, ten or
twelve culverins, and everything else in it. On the morning of the
next day, which was the second of May, in the year one thousand five
hundred and seventy, the captain set free one of the Moro prisoners,
and sent him to the second fort, which was in the middle of the island
very near the first one, and charged him to tell them that he summoned
them to surr