ings, as a well-bred Spaniard always knows how, and then,
beckoning to the person that attended him, bade him go and call out his
comrades. He then asked me if I would walk to my old habitation, where
he would give me possession of my own house again, and where I should see
they had made but mean improvements. I walked along with him, but, alas!
I could no more find the place than if I had never been there; for they
had planted so many trees, and placed them in such a position, so thick
and close to one another, and in ten years' time they were grown so big,
that the place was inaccessible, except by such windings and blind ways
as they themselves only, who made them, could find.

I asked them what put them upon all these fortifications; he told me I
would say there was need enough of it when they had given me an account
how they had passed their time since their arriving in the island,
especially after they had the misfortune to find that I was gone. He
told me he could not but have some pleasure in my good fortune, when he
heard that I was gone in a good ship, and to my satisfaction; and that he
had oftentimes a strong persuasion that one time or other he should see
me again, but nothing that ever befell him in his life, he said, was so
surprising and afflicting to him at first as the disappointment he was
under when he came back to the island and found I was not there.

As to the three barbarians (so he called them) that were left behind, and
of whom, he said, he had a long story to tell me, the Spaniards all
thought themselves much better among the savages, only that their number
was so small: "And," says he, "had they been strong enough, we had been
all long ago in purgatory;" and with that he crossed himself on the
breast. "But, sir," says he, "I hope you will not be displeased when I
shall tell you how, forced by necessity, we were obliged for our own
preservation to disarm them, and make them our subjects, as they would
not be content with being moderately our masters, but would be our
murderers." I answered I was afraid of it when I left them there, and
nothing troubled me at my parting from the island but that they were not
come back, that I might have put them in possession of everything first,
and left the others in a state of subjection, as they deserved; but if
they had reduced them to it I was very glad, and should be very far from
finding any fault with it; for I knew they were a parcel of refractory