55 
1671 ] of the Island Dauphine, &c. 
are generally at war, of which the cause arises about the 
wives. And besides this, they keep up the hatred of several 
races, one against another, until they shall avenge them¬ 
selves : the Fathers impress their hatreds in the spirit of 
their children, & excite them to avenge them, if they find 
occasion. 
They are very cruel in their Victory, & put all they 
can take of their enemies to fire and sword, without spar¬ 
ing anything, not even the infants at the cradle. If they 
are ask’d wherefore they slaughter these infants, who are 
not in a state to hurt them, they reply, that if they should 
leave them to live, these children would recall to mind the 
treatment done to their fathers, & being great, would be 
able to make War on them or on their children, or treat 
them in the same way in which their fathers had been 
treated. 
Nevertheless there are to be found some more humane 
than others, who take the women & the children, of whom 
they make Slaves. 
They also fight much between themselves, so that a 
good number of them spend their lives on the field of 
battle. 
Their arms are Sagayes 1 ; there are some who carry ten 
or twelve. There’s one of them which they call Mistress 
sagaye, which is larger & stronger than the others, which 
they keep for the last, with which they fight hand to hand, 
when they have hurl’d their other sagayes, which they dart 
one at another so vigorously, that they can slay and pierce 
from point to point at more than sixty paces. 
Those who do not carry so many sagayes have a buckler 
& a big sagaye to fight hand to hand. 
1 Sagayes are shafts of wood, well straightened and polish’d, of the thick¬ 
ness of the finger, more or less, according to the strength desired; they are 
three or four feet in length, & are shod at the end with a flat iron shoe as 
long as a finger. It serves as a ferrule to keep the rod straight, & at the 
other end is a blade made like that of a demi-pike. 
