A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 03: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present TimeKerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 03: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
The women of this island were excessively fat, insomuch that some were
thicker than a man could grasp round; they all wear their hair long and
loose upon their shoulders, nor do they cover any part of their bodies
except as before mentioned. As soon as their children can use their limbs,
they give them bows and arrows that they may learn to shoot. The woman who
made so much resistance said that the island was only inhabited by women,
and that those who made demonstrations of hindering the landing of our men
were all women, except four men who had come there accidentally from
another island; for at certain times of the year the men come from the
other islands to sport and cohabit with the women of this. The same
customs were followed by the women in another island, called Matrimonio or
the Island of Matrimony, and this woman gave an account of these islanders
similar to what we read concerning the Amazons; and the admiral believed
it because of the strength and courage of these women[9]. It is also said
that these women seemed to have clearer understandings than those of the
other islands; for in the other islands they only reckon the day by the
sun and the nights by the moon, whereas these women reckoned by other
stars, saying that it is time to do such and such things when the great
bear or certain other stars, as it may be, are due north.
When they had made provision of bread for twenty days besides what they
had on board, the admiral resolved to continue his voyage into Spain. But,
considering that the island of Guadaloupe was an inlet to others, he
thought fit to send all the women on shore, having first made them some
gifts in compensation of the loss they had sustained; except the chief
lady, who chose to go into Spain with her daughter along with the other
Indians from Hispaniola. One of these was Cannabo, the chief cacique of
that island in the late disturbances, who was himself a Carib and not a
native of that island. Having furnished all the vessels with bread, wood,
and water, the admiral set sail on Wednesday the twentieth of April from
Guadaloupe, with the wind very scant, keeping near the latitude of
twenty-two degrees north: as at this time they had not found out the
method of running away north to meet the S.W. winds.
Having made but little way and the ships being full of people, they began
by the twentieth of May to be much afflicted with scarcity of provisions,
insomuch that they were reduced to an allowance of six ounces of bread and
less than a pint of water for each person daily, and had no other article
of provision besides. Though there were eight or nine pilots in the two
ships, yet none of them knew whereabout they were, but the admiral was
confident that they were then only a little west of the Azores, whereof he
gives the following account in his journal.
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