grows on the trees. Young women cover themselves with deerskins. These people share all that they have with one another. There is no chief among them, and all the people of one lineage live together. Two language groups live there: one group is called the Capoques and the other the Han. They have the following custom: when they know each other and see each other from time to time, before speaking they cry for half an hour. When this is finished, the one who is visited rises first and gives the other everything he owns. The other one accepts and in a short while leaves with it. Sometimes they leave without saying a word after accepting the gifts. They have other strange customs, but I have described only the principal and most noteworthy ones so that I can go on and tell more of what happened to us.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

How the Christians Left the Isle of Misfortune

After Dorantes and Castillo retumed to the island they gathered together all the Christians who were scattered about and discovered that there was a total of fourteen. As I said, I was on the other side, on the mainland, where my Indians had taken me. There I had gotten so sick that nothing could have given me hope of surviving my illness. When the Christians learned of this, they gave an Indian the sable mantle that we had taken from the chief, as we noted above, to take them to where I was so that they could see me. Twelve of them came, because two of them were so weak that they did not dare bring them along. The names of the twelve that came are Alonso del Castillo, Andrés Dorantes and Diego Dorantes, Valdivieso, Estrada, Tostado, Chávez, Gutiérrez, Asturiano (a clergyman), Diego de Huelva, Estebanico the black man, and Benítez. Once they reached