144
LIFE A N D VOYAGES OF
[BOOK
XI.
The banquet being over, Don Bartholomew with six of his principal cavaliers were lodged in the dwelling of Behechio ; the rest were distributed in the houses of the inferior caciques, where they slept in hammocks of matted cotton, the usual beds of the natives. For two days they remained with the hospitable Behechio, entertained with various Indian game3 and festivities, among which the most remarkable was the representation of a battle. Two squadrons of naked Indians, armed with bows and arrows, sallied suddenly into the public square and began to skirmish in a manner similar to the Moorish play of canes, or tilting reeds. By degrees they became excited, and fought with such earnest ness, that four were slain, and many wounded, which seemed to increase the interest and pleasure of the spectators. The contest would have continued longer, and might have been still more bloody, had not the Adelantado and the other cavaliers interfered and begged that the game might cease.* When the festivities were over, and familiar intercourse had promoted mutual confidence, the Adelantado addressed the cacique and Anacaona on the real object of his visit. He informed him that his brother, the admiral, had been sent to this island by the sovereigns of Castile, who were great and mighty potentates, with many kingdoms under their sway. That the rained to taste the serpentes.
But when he felte the flesh thereof to be so
delycate to his tongue, he fel to amayne without al feare.
The which thyng
his companions perceiving, were not behynde hym in greedynesse : insomuche that they had now none other talke than of the sweetnesse of these serpentes, which they affirm to be of more pleasant taste, than eyther our phesantes or partriches.�
Peter Martyr, decad. i. book v.
* Las Casas, Hist. Ind., tom. i. cap. 113.
Eden's Eng. Trans.