ir circumstances;
for if, pressed by the hardships they were under, and the barrenness of
the country where they were, they had searched after a better place to
live in, they had then been out of the way of the relief that happened
to them by my means.

Then they gave me an account how the savages whom they lived among
expected them to go out with them into their wars; and it was true, that
as they had fire-arms with them, had they not had the disaster to lose
their ammunition, they should not have been serviceable only to their
friends, but have made themselves terrible both to friends and enemies;
but being without powder and shot, and in a condition that they could
not in reason deny to go out with their landlords to their wars; when
they came in the field of battle they were in a worse condition than the
savages themselves, for they neither had bows nor arrows, nor could they
use those the savages gave them, so that they could do nothing but stand
still and be wounded with arrows, till they came up to the teeth of
their enemy; and then indeed the three halberts they had were of use to
them, and they would often drive a whole little army before them with
those halberts and sharpened sticks put into the muzzles of their
muskets: but that for all this, they were sometimes surrounded with
multitudes, and in great danger from their arrows; till at last they
found the way to make themselves large targets of wood, which they
covered with skins of wild beasts, whose names they knew not, and these
covered them from the arrows of the savages; that notwithstanding these,
they were sometimes in great danger, and were once five of them knocked
down together with the clubs of the savages, which was the time when one
of them was taken prisoner, that is to say, the Spaniard whom I had
relieved; that at first they thought he had been killed, but when
afterwards they heard he was taken prisoner, they were under the
greatest grief imaginable, and would willingly have all ventured their
lives to have rescued him.

They told me, that when they were so knocked down, the rest of their
company rescued them, and stood over them fighting till they were come
to themselves, all but he who they thought had been dead; and then they
made their way with their halberts and pieces, standing close together
in a line, through a body of above a thousand savages, beating down all
that came in their way, got the victory over their enemies, but to their