NARRATIVE OF THE SPANIARDS. 4655

They gave me an account how many ways they strove to civilize
the savages they were with, and to teach them rational customs in
the ordinary way of living, but in vain; and how they retorted it
upon them as unjust, that they who came there for assistance and
support should attempt to set up for instructors of those that gave
them bread ; intimating, it seems, that none should set up for the
instructors of others but those who could live without them.

They gave me dismal accounts of the extremities they were
driven to; how, sometimes, they were many ways without any food
atall; the island they were upon being inhabited by a sort of savages
that lived more indolent, and for that reason were less supplied
with the necessaries of life, than they had reason to believe others
were in the same part of the world; and yet they found that these
savages.were less ravenous and voracious than those who had better
supplies of food.

Also, they added, that they could not but see with what demon-
strations of wisdom and goodness the governing providence of God
directs the events of things in the world; which, they said, ap-
peared in their circumstances: for if, pressed by the hardships they
were under, and the barrenness of the country where they were,
they had searched after a better place to live in, they had then
been out of the way of the relief that happened to them by my
means.

Then they gave me an account how the savages whom they
lived among expected them to go out with them into their wars.
And it was true that, as they had firearms with them, had they
not had the disaster to lose their ammunition, they should not
have been serviceable only to their friends, but have made them-
selves terrible both to friends and enemies; but being without
powder and shot, and yet in a condition that they could not in
reason deny to go out with their landlords to their wars, when
they came into the field of battle they were in a worse condition
than the savages themselves, for they neither had bows nor arrows,
nor could they use those the savages gave them: so that they
could do nothing but stand still and be wounded with arrows till
they came up to the teeth of their enemy; and then, indeed, the
three halberds they had were of use to them; and they would