eared to be the principal man. They took them and as if in gratitude
for what had been given them, by signs said to him that he should go to
land with them, and there they would give him what they had. He accepted
and they went away to land. The pilot entered the boat and went to beg
permission of the Admiral on the ship, and when they saw that he did not
go directly with him, they did not expect him longer, and so they went
away and neither the Admiral nor any other ever saw them more. From the
sudden change in their bearing because of the playing on the tambourine
and the dancing, it appears that this must be considered among them a
sign of hostility.

A servant of the Admiral, called Bernaldo de Ibarro, who was on this
voyage with him, told me and gave it to me in writing and I have this
writing in my possession to-day, that a cacique came to the ship of the
Admiral and was wearing upon his head a diadem of gold; and he went to
the Admiral who was wearing a scarlet cap and greeted him and kissed his
own diadem, and with the other hand he removed the cap of the Admiral and
placed upon-him the diadem, and he himself put upon his own head the
scarlet cap, appearing very content and pleased.

The Admiral says here that these were all youths and very well shaped and
adorned, although I do not believe they wore much silk or brocade, with
which, also, I believe the Spaniards and the Admiral might be more
pleased; but they came armed with bows and arrows and wooden shields.
They were not as short as others he had seen in the Indies and they were
whiter, and of very good movements and handsome bodies, the hair long and
smooth and cut in the manner of Castile. They had the head tied with a
large handkerchief of cotton, symmetrically woven in colors, which the
Admiral believed to be the _almaicar_;[336-1] he says that others had
this cloth around them, and they covered themselves with it in place of
trousers. He says that they are not black although they are near the
equinoctial,[337-1] but of an Indian color like all the others he has
found. They are of very fine stature, go naked, are warlike, wear the
hair very long like the women in Castile, carry bows and arrows with
plumes, and at the end of the arrows a sharp bone with a point like a
fish-hook, and they carry wooden shields, which he had not seen before;
and according to the signs and gestures which they made, he says he could
understand from them that they believed the