the enemies began to lose spirit, and the friendly natives to take
heart, and to hold us in greater esteem. This was on the twenty-ninth
of August. On the very next day I brought the men down to the fort,
and encouraged them all, and bade them be of good hope that the work
would soon be done; and I cheered them to it, and straightway followed
up the undertaking, without giving the men's ardor a chance to cool. I
got aboard ship, and made my way along the coast. On the eighteenth of
September, I entered a river called Picon, in a well-peopled country,
there being, besides the natives, a large number of the enemy, who had
been scattered abroad, and had joined them. At daybreak we arrived at
the first village, close to the sea. It was one of the finest places
I have seen, with excellent houses, and a very elaborate mosque; there
was a good supply of swine, fowls, goats, and fruit. The enemy made a
stand, but at the first encounter we overpowered them, and killed or
captured more than two hundred persons; the troops stopped for food,
and then I had the village burned. I would have liked to attack another
village, which lay a day's march inland, and which has two thousand
houses. I left it, because I could have done nothing at that time;
for the fugitives from the first village had warned them, and they had
all gone to the mountains. This stroke had terrorized the whole coast,
and not a vessel appeared over its whole extent; for, as there were
Indians in many places, they had all received news of it without delay.

I could remain no longer, nor pass on to other encounters which I
might have had there, on account of the crops which I had discovered
at Buyahen, which were urgently demanding my presence for the harvest,
before their owners should gather them. Accordingly I came back to the
fort, whence, in less than four days, I again sent the same captains
who had been there before, for the crops, with eighty soldiers and
all the boats, besides five hundred friendly Indians, to gather