But at that very time there was a great mortality among the Orthuses, caused by famine, for they had nothing to eat, the locusts or grasshoppers having twice eaten and destroyed all the corn and the fruits of their trees. When we Christians saw this, and heard how things were going there, we became frightened, and could not remain long in the land, because we also had not much to eat. So our commander asked their chief how many days’ journey we yet had to the Amazons, and he said we must yet travel one full month to reach them, and besides, all the land was full of water, as it indeed appeared.
Now the chief of the Orthuses presented our commander with four Pleynisch[173] of gold, and four silver rings which they wear on the arm; but the Indians wear the plates on their foreheads for ornaments, as our nobles do their gold chains on their necks. For all this, our commander gave the chief of the Indians a hatchet, knives, paternosters, scissors, and other things which are made at Nuremberg. We would have wished more from them, but we durst not ask it, for we Christians were not numerous enough, and therefore had to beware of them. The Indians, on the contrary, were very numerous, and their town so large, that I had hitherto never seen in the whole of India so many people together, nor such a big place, although I have been far and wide. The mortality among the Indians, dying from hunger, certainly was our good luck, for otherwise we Christians might not perhaps have escaped with our lives.
[173] Plates.
When we again returned to the aforesaid Siberis, we were ill-provided with victual, for they had nothing to eat but a tree called a palm, and cardes,[174] and other roots which grow underground. And when we came to the Scherues, our people were half dead for sickness, because of the water and the poverty that we had to undergo during this journey, for we never came out of the water for thirty days and nights together, and we were always constrained to drink of that impure water.
[174] Thistles.
So we remained among the Scherues, where the King lives, for four days, and they treated us very well, and waited on us diligently, and the King ordered his subjects to give us all things necessary.
On this journey each of us plundered nearly two hundred ducats’ worth of Indian cotton mantles and silver, having secretly bartered these for knives, paternosters,[175] scissors, and looking-glasses.
[175] Rosaries.
After all this we again went down the river to our chief commander, Albernunzo Cabessa de Bacha,[176] and when we arrived, he ordered us on our lives not to come out of the ships, and he came also in person to us and ordered our commander, Ernando Rieffere,[177] to be cast into prison, and took from us soldiers all that we had brought with us from the country; and finally, he would have hanged our commander, Ernando Rieffere, on a tree. But when we heard of this, we being still in the Bergentin,[178] raised a great tumult along with other good friends who were on shore, against our chief commander, Albernunzo Cabessa de Bacha, demanding that he should set our commander, Ernando Rieffere, free, and restore to us all of that which he had taken away, otherwise we should take measures accordingly. Seeing such an uproar and our wrathful indignation, he was very glad indeed to let our commander go free, and to restore to us all he had taken away, giving us fair words that we might be pacified; how it fared with him afterwards shall presently be told.
[176] Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca.