ul escaped; and after having
killed and cut them in pieces on the shore, the natives prepared to
eat them in full view of the Spaniards, who from their ships witnessed
this horrible sight. Frightened by these atrocities, the men did not
venture to land and execute vengeance for the murder of their leader
and companions. They loaded their ships with red wood, which the
Italians call verzino and the Spaniards brazil-wood, and which is
suitable for dyeing wool; after which they returned home. I have
learned these particulars by correspondence, and I here repeat them. I
shall further relate what the other explorers accomplished.

[Note 5: Juan Diaz de Solis, a native of Sebixa, sailed with
Vincente Yanez Pinzon in 1508, when the mouths of the Amazon were
discovered. In 1512, the King appointed him and Giovanni Vespucci his
cartographers.]

[Note 6: Governor in 1508 of Porto Rico and later, in 1512, the
discoverer of Florida, of which country he was appointed Adelantado by
King Ferdinand. He died in Cuba in 1521, from the effects of a wound
received during his expedition to Florida in that year.]

[Note 7: The scene of this massacre was between Maldonado and
Montevideo.]

Juan Ponce likewise endured a severe check from the cannibals on the
island of Guadaloupe, which is the most important of all the Carib
islands. When these people beheld the Spanish ships, they concealed
themselves in a place from which they could spy upon all the movements
of the people who might land. Ponce had sent some women ashore to wash
some shirts and linen, and also some foot-soldiers to obtain fresh
water, for he had not seen land after leaving the island of Ferro in
the Canaries until he reached Guadaloupe, a distance of four thousand
two hundred miles. There is no island in the ocean throughout the
entire distance. The cannibals suddenly attacked and captured the
women, dispersing the men, a small number of whom managed to escape.
Ponce did not venture to attack the Caribs, fearing the poisoned
arrows which these barbarous man-eaters use with fatal effect.

This excellent Ponce who, as long as he was in a place of safety, had
boasted that he would exterminate the Caribs, was constrained to leave
his washerwomen and retreat before the islanders. What he has since
done, and what discoveries he may have made, I have not yet learned.
Thus Solis lost his life, and Ponce his honour, in carrying out their
expeditions.

Another who failed misera