Then our commander Johann Eijollas[96] inquired of the Carios about a people called Peijembas,[97] and they answered: it was from this town Desumsion to the Peijembas[97] one hundred miles distance up the river Parabol.[98]
[96] Juan de Ayolas.
[97] Payaguás.
[98] Paraguai.
Our commander then asked the Carios how the Peijembas[97] lived, and what provisions they had, and from what they abstained; also what kind of people they were, and of their habits. Their answer was, that the Peijembas[99] had nothing else but fish and meat, and also St. John’s bread and fenugreek.[100] From this fenugreek they make flour which they eat with their fish; they also make wine of it, and this wine is as sweet as mead in Germany.
[99] Payaguás, vide supra, p. [15].
[100] Algarroba.
Our chief captain Johann Eijollas having heard all this from the Carios, ordered them to load five ships with provisions of Turkish corn and other things which were in the country; this had to be done in two months’ time, and by that time he and his men would also equip themselves, and in the first place go to the Peijembas,[99] and afterwards to a people called Carch Karaisch, and the Carios promised to be always obedient, and to fulfil in all particulars the captain’s orders.
All things having now been arranged, and the ships provided with victual, our commander ordered all the people to assemble, and out of the four hundred men, took three hundred well armed; and the remaining one hundred were left in the aforesaid town Vardellesse,[101] i.e. Noster Signora Desumsion, where the said Carios live. And then we went up the river and found at a distance of five miles from these Carios a village on the river Paraboe. The people here brought to us Christians, victual, in the shape of fish, meat, hens, geese, Indian sheep, and ostriches.
[101] Vardellesse must be a Germanized form of the Spanish word Fortaleza (fortress).