Vespucius and his men had never seen anything like it before and looked at the funny little place in astonishment. But as soon as the natives saw the Spaniards, they drew up all their bridges and disappeared; in a few minutes, however, Vespucius saw twenty-two canoes filled with these savages coming toward his boats; as soon as they got near enough they began shooting arrows at the Spaniards, and then Vespucius, seeing that they did not mean to be friendly, ordered the guns to be fired. The Indians were terribly frightened by the noise and smoke of the guns; they had never seen such things before, and very soon they rowed back to the shore, and Vespucius sailed on farther south. When he landed next he found a more friendly tribe of Indians; they were at first afraid of the Spaniards, and ran away when they saw them coming. Vespucius and his men went into the wigwams and found that the Indians had fires burning, upon which young alligators were roasting. By and by the Indians, seeing that the Spaniards meant no harm, came back and treated their guests so kindly that Vespucius stayed there nearly two weeks, visiting, in the meantime, some of their villages which were built back from the sea. The natives grew very fond of him, and hundreds of them followed him back to his ship, but when he ordered the cannon fired they all jumped back into the water and swam away. But Vespucius did not mean to harm them, so he called them back, and then the Indians and Spaniards exchanged presents and Vespucius sailed away. He still kept to the coast of Venezuela, and sailing northwest entered the bay of Cremana. Here he found the natives friendly and remained with them more than a month, and they begged him to help them kill their enemies, who lived on an island in the sea, and who were a very great and powerful tribe, and came every year and took away many of their number whom they killed and ate. Vespucius promised to help them, and taking seven of them with him as guides, he started off for the island. As soon as the cannibals saw him coming they gathered on the shore ready for fight. They were covered with war-paint and feathers, and armed with arrows, lances and clubs. At first it seemed that the Spaniards would be beaten, as the Indians pressed around them so closely they could not use their swords, but finally the cannibals were driven back. Vespucius then tried to make friends with them, but they would not do so, and after a two days' fight he conquered them, burned their town, and sailed away with two hundred and fifty of them whom he sold for slaves on reaching Spain. This seems a very cruel act now, but in those times it was thought to be quite right to sell captives taken in war, and so Vespucius only did what he thought was perfectly fair.