f timber
and covered with palm leaves, which grew abundantly along the banks of the
river; and besides the ordinary houses for the colony, a large house was
built to serve as a magazine and store-house, into which several pieces of
cannon, powder, provisions, and other necessaries for the use and support
of the planters were put. But the wine, biscuit, oil, vinegar, cheese, and
a considerable supply of grain were left in the ship Gallega as the safest
place; which was to be left with the lieutenant for the service of the
colony, with all its cordage, nets, hooks and other tackle; for, as has
been already said, there is vast abundance of fish in every river of that
coast, several sorts at certain seasons running along the coast in shoals,
on which the people of the country live more than upon flesh, for though
there are some beasts of different sorts, there are by no means enough to
maintain the inhabitants.

The customs of these Indians are for the most part much the same as those
of Hispaniola and the neighbouring islands; but those people of Veragua
and the country about it, when they talk to one another are constantly
turning their backs and always chewing an herb, which we believed to be
the reson that their teeth were rotten and decayed. Their food is mostly
fish, which they take with nets, and with hooks made of tortoiseshell,
which they cut with a thread as if they were sawing, in the same manner as
is done in the islands. They have another way of catching some very small
fishes, which are called _Titi_ in Hispaniola. At certain times these are
driven towards the shore by the rains, and are so persecuted by the larger
fish that they are forced up to the surface in shoal water, where the
Indians take as many of them as they have a mind by means of little matts
or small meshed nets. They wrap these up singly in certain leaves, and
having dried them in an oven they will keep a great while. They also catch
pilchards in the same manner; for at certain times these fly with such
violence from the pursuit of the large fish, that they will leap out of
the water two or three paces on the dry land, so that they have nothing to
do but take them as they do the _Titi_. These pilchards are taken after
another manner: They raise a partition of palm-tree leaves two yards high
in the middle of a canoe, fore and aft as the seamen call it, or from stem
to stern; then plying about the river they make a great noise, beating the
shores