The women said that this was because ten canoes had gone on a robbing or kidnapping expedition to other islands.

"This people," says Doctor Chanca, "appeared to us more polite than those who live in the other islands we have seen, though they all have straw houses." But he goes on to say that these houses are better made and provided, and that more of both men's and women's work appeared in them.

They had not only plenty of spun and unspun cotton, but many cotton mantles, "so well woven that they yield in nothing (or owe nothing) to those of our country." When the women, who had been found captives, were asked who the people of the island were, they replied that they were Caribs.

"When they heard that we abhorred such people for their evil use of eating men's flesh, they rejoiced much." But even in the captivity which all shared, they showed fear of their old masters.
"The customs of this people, the Caribs," says Dr.Chanca, "are beastly;" and it would be difficult not to agree with him, in spite of the "politeness" and comparative civilization he has spoken of.
They occupied three islands, and lived in harmony with each other, but made war in their canoes on all the other islands in the neighborhood.
They used arrows in warfare, but had no iron.

Some of them used arrow-heads of tortoise shell, others sharply toothed fish-bones, which could do a good deal of damage among unarmed men.