they had burned the village. The Indians then departed,
saying they would return on the following day with the said Guacamari,
and left us consoled for that night. On the morning of the next day, we
were expecting that Guacamari would come; and, in the meantime, some of
our men landed by command of the Admiral, and went to the spot where the
Spaniards had formerly been: they found the building which they had
inhabited, and which they had in some degree fortified with a palisade,
burnt and levelled with the ground; they found also some cloaks and
clothing which the Indians had brought to throw upon the house. They
observed too that the Indians who were seen near the spot, looked very
shy, and dared not approach, but, on the contrary, fled from them. This
appeared strange to us, for the Admiral had told us that in the former
voyage, when he arrived at this place, so many came in canoes to see us,
that there was no keeping them off; and as we now saw that they were
suspicious of us, it gave us a very unfavorable impression. We threw
trifles, such as hawk bells[300-1] and beads, towards them, in order to
conciliate them, but only four, a relation of Guacamari's and three
others, took courage to enter the boat, and were rowed on board. When
they were asked concerning the Spaniards, they replied that all of them
were dead; we had been told this already by one of the Indians whom we
had brought from Spain, and who had conversed with the two Indians that
on the former occasion came on board with their canoe, but we had not
believed it. Guacamari's kinsman was asked who had killed them; he
replied that the king of Caonabo and king Mayreni had made an attack upon
them, and burnt the buildings on the spot, that many were wounded in the
affray, and among them Guacamari, who had received a wound in his thigh,
and had retired to some distance. He also stated that he wished to go and
fetch him; upon which some trifles were given to him, and he took his
departure for the place of Guacamari's abode. All that day we remained in
expectation of them, and when we saw that they did not come, many
suspected that the Indians who had been on board the night before, had
been drowned; for they had had wine given them two or three times, and
they had come in a small canoe that might be easily upset. The next
morning the Admiral went on shore, taking some of us with him; we went to
the spot where the settlement had been, and found it utterly destroye