200 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



two soldiers, 'Let us go to the ships where these people are husy 

 robbing, perhaps we shall find something to eat,' since, as a matter 

 of fact, I was perishing of hunger. Going in that direction we began 

 to see dead bodies, most miserable and pitiful to look on ; as the sea 

 from time to time threw them up on the beach, so that on that strand 

 there lay stretched more than 400. Some of them we recognised, and 

 amongst them, poor D. Diego Enriquez, whose body, even in the 

 midst of my distress, I could not bring myself to pass without burying 

 it in a hole which we made in the sand at the water's edge. Along 

 with him, we buried another captain, much honoured, and my great 

 friend. Hardly had we covered them when there came down on us 

 some 200 natives (salvajes) to see what we were about. "We gave 

 them to understand, by signs, that we had buried there these men, 

 who were our brothers, in order that their bodies might not become 

 food for ravens, and at once separated from them in search of food 

 along the beach, such as the biscuits which the waves were casting 

 up. Just then four natives (salvajes) came up and commenced to 

 take from me the covering I carried, another of them seemed, how- 

 ever, to be pained thereat and pushed the others aside, seeing them 

 commence to illtreat me ; he must have been their leader as they 

 seemed to pay him deference. 



He by God's grace stood by me and my two companions, and drew 

 us away from that place, and remained in our company for a good 

 while, until he finally put us on a road^ leading from the shore to a 

 village where he lived, making us understand that we should wait for 

 him there, that he would be back soon, and that he would show us 

 the road to a place of safety. Setting out therefore on this road, 

 there was for me the further misery that it was very stony, so that 

 I could not even move nor put one foot before another, being in my 

 bare feet and suffering mortal agony from one leg in which was a 

 great wound. My poor companions who were entirely naked, and 

 almost frozen with cold, then very sharp, were more dead than alive, 

 and could not render me any assistance. They went on therefore 

 before me and I remained where I was praying that God would 

 favour me. He gave me help, and I commenced to get along little by 

 little,* and reached the top of a hill from whence I discovered some 

 thatched huts, which I made for, the road leading through a valley. 

 I entered a wood and had hardly gone the distance of two shots of a 

 matchlock when there started out from behiad the rocks an old native 



1 See note 2, p. 179. ^ ggg note 3, p. 179. 



