The Spaniards vigorously defended themselves with their muskets and then made a dash for the canoes in their long boats. They overturned several, killed about twenty of the South Americans, and took two of the girls and three men prisoners. Many of the natives were wounded. The Spaniards did not burn the town, but returned to their ships, where they placed the three men, whom they had captured, in irons. Then they sailed southward, but, when morning dawned, discovered that the natives had managed to wiggle out of their irons and had jumped overboard.
Keeping their course continually along the coast, the explorers came to anchor about eighty miles from this new-world Venice, where they saw about four thousand persons gathered upon the shore. These set up a wild yelping, when the Spaniards let down their boats, and fled into the forest. The white men followed and found a camp where two natives were engaged in cooking iguanas, an animal which the early discoverers describe as a serpent. The two cooks fled, of course, but the whites disturbed nothing in the camp, in order to reassure the natives, and then leisurely returned to their boats.
Upon the following day these Indians paddled to the ships, and when they saw the two girl prisoners whom the Spaniards had taken, they became suddenly very friendly, for these girls belonged to a tribe with which they were then at war.
“We have only come here for the fishing,” said one of them, a chief. “We live far back in the country and wish you to journey to see us as our friends.”
The invitation was received with great satisfaction by the whites.
“They importuned us so much,” says Vespucci in his narrative of these events, published some years afterwards, “that, having taken counsel, twenty-three of us Christians concluded to go with them, well prepared, and with firm resolution to die manfully, if such was to be our fate.”
So, the Spaniards journeyed inland, remained three days at the fishing camp, and then set out for the interior, where they visited so many villages that they were nine days on the journey, and their comrades on board the vessels grew very uneasy about them. The Indians, in fact, showed them great attention, and when they were about to return to the ships, insisted upon carrying them along in hammocks, slung upon the shoulders of strong and willing porters. When the explorers arrived at the shore, their boats were almost swamped by the numbers of savages who wished to accompany them, while swarms of natives who could not get into the boats, swam alongside to the ships. So many came aboard, that the mariners were quite troubled, fearing that they might make a sudden and unexpected attack. A cannon was fired off to impress the natives with the power of the explorers. At the explosion of the piece, many leaped into the sea, like frogs plunging into a marsh. Those who remained seemed to be unafraid and took leave of the mariners with many demonstrations of affection.
The Spaniards had now been thirteen months at sea, so their thoughts turned towards home. It was therefore decided to careen their vessels on the beach, in order to calk and pitch them anew, as they leaked badly, and then they would return to Spain. The Castilians made a breastwork of their boats and their casks, and placed their artillery so that it would play upon any enemies who might advance; then, having unloaded and lightened their ships, they hauled them on land to make much needed repairs.
No attack was made by the natives. Instead of this the South Americans brought them food, begging them to assist them in punishing a very cruel tribe of people who came to their country, every year, from the sea, and killed many of their warriors. They afterwards would eat them. Against these enemies they said that they were unable to defend themselves. When the Spaniards promised to march against the cannibals, no words could express their gratitude. Many wished to go with them, but the whites wisely rejected such offers, permitting only seven to accompany them.