"They (the inhabitants), who were many, as naked and in the same
condition as those of San Salvador, let us land on the island, and gave
us what we asked of them. * * *

"I set out for the ship. And there was a large almadia which had
come to board the caravel Nina, and one of the men from we Island of San
Salvador threw himself into the sea, took this boat, and made off; and
the night before, at midnight, another jumped out. And the almadia went
back so fast that there never was a boat which could come up with her,
although we had a considerable advantage. It reached the shore, and they
left the almadia, and some of my company landed after them, and they all
fled like hens.

"And the almadia, which they had left, we took to the caravel Nina, to
which from another headland there was coming another little almadia,
with a man who came to barter a skein of cotton. And some of the sailors
threw themselves into the sea, because he did not wish to enter the
caravel, and took him. And I, who was on the stern of the ship, and saw
it all, sent for him and gave him a red cap and some little green glass
beads which I put on his arm, and two small bells which I put at his
ears, and I had his almadia returned, * * * and sent him ashore.

"And I set sail at once to go to the other large island which I saw at
the west, and commanded the other almadia to be set adrift, which the
caravel Nina was towing astern. And then I saw on land, when the man
landed, to whom I had given the above mentioned things (and I had not
consented to take the skein of cotton, though he wished to give it to
me), all the others went to him and thought it a great wonder, and it
seemed to them that we were good people, and that the other man, who
had fled, had done us some harm, and that therefore we were carrying him