The inhabitants of this island of Palma have neither bread nor vegetables, but only sheep and milk and herbs, and maintain themselves on these; they know not to recognise God nor any faith, but only think they believe; like the other cattle they are very bestial; and they say they have certain among them who are called kings; and their fighting is done with staves like the men of Teneriffe, except that where an iron head should be, they put a sharp horn, and another at the lower end, though not so sharp an one as that at the top. They have no fish, nor do the men of this island eat them; and, while those of all the other islands do just the contrary, seeking means to capture them and making use of them in their housekeeping, these men only do not eat fish nor are they at the pains to capture them. And the number of inhabitants will be five hundred men, which is a great marvel, that being so few they have never been conquered from the beginning of the world; and from this it is evident how all things are only as God willeth them to be, and at the times and within the bounds that please Him. CHAPTER LXXXIII. Of how the Island of Madeira was peopled, and also the other Islands that are in that part. Since I have related, in the fifth Chapter of this work, where I spoke of the especial things which the Infant performed for the service of God and the honour of the realm, how that among the other matters accomplished by him was the peopling of these islands, I would here tell briefly of the said peopling, and the more particularly as in the past few chapters I have spoken of the Canary Islands. Now it was so, that in the household of the Infant there were two noble esquires, brought up by that lord, men young in years and fit for great deeds. And after the Infant returned from raising the siege of Ceuta, when the united power of those Moorish Kings had encircled it, these men begged him to put them in the way to perform some honourable deed, like men who desired it much, for it seemed to them that their time was ill spent if they did not toil in some undertaking with their bodies. And the Infant, perceiving their good wills, bade them make ready a vessel in which they were to go on a warlike enterprise against the Moors, directing them to voyage in search of the land of Guinea, which he already had purposed to discover.[N199] And since it pleased God to ordain such a benefit, both for this Kingdom and also for many other parts, He guided them so that, even with the weather against them, they reached the island that is now called Porto Santo, being nigh to the island of Madeira, the which may be seven leagues in circumference. And so they remained there for some days and right well examined the land, and it seemed to them that it would be a very profitable thing to people it. And returning thence to the Kingdom, they spoke of it to the Infant, and described the goodness of the land and the desire they had as to its peopling; and this pleased