ge was too low for him to enter
otherwise.

After having proceeded a considerable way thus, he arrived at a spacious
chamber, but whether hollowed out by hands, or natural, he could not be
positive. The light into this chamber was conveyed through a hole at the
top; in the midst was a kind of bier, made of sticks laid crossways,
supported by props of about five feet in height. Upon this bier five or six
bodies were extended, which, in appearance, had been deposited there a long
time, but had suffered no decay or diminution. They were without covering,
and the flesh of their bodies was become perfectly dry and hard, which
whether done by any art or secret the savages may be possessed of, or
occasioned by any drying virtue in the air of the cave, could not be
guessed. Indeed, the surgeon finding nothing there to eat, which was his
chief inducement for his creeping into this hole, did not amuse himself
with long disquisitions, or make that accurate examination which he would
have done at another time; but crawling out as he came in, he went and told
the first he met of what he had seen. Some had the curiosity to go in
likewise.

I had forgot to mention that there was another range of bodies deposited in
the same manner upon another platform under the bier. Probably this was the
burial-place of their great men called Caciques; but from whence they could
be brought we were utterly at a loss to conceive, there being no traces of
any Indian settlement hereabout. We had seen no savages since we left the
island, or observed any marks in the coves or bays to the northward where
we had touched, such as of fire-places or old wig-wams, which they never
fail of leaving behind them; and it is very probable, from the violent seas
that are always beating upon this coast, its deformed aspect, and the very
swampy soil that every where borders upon it, that it is little frequented.

We now crossed the first bay for the head-land we left on Christmas-day,
much dejected; for under our former sufferings we were in some measure
supported with the hopes, that as we advanced, however little, they were so
much the nearer their termination; but now our prospect was dismal and
dispiriting indeed, as we had the same difficulties and dangers to
encounter, not only without any flattering views to lessen them, but under
the aggravating circumstance of their leading to an inevitable and
miserable death; for we could not possibly conceive that the fate