well and eat the scrapings, which was enough to sustain me for two or three days. It also happened that when these people, or the ones we were with before, gave us a piece of meat, we ate it raw, because if we tried to roast it, the first Indian that came by would take it and eat it. We thought that we should not risk losing the piece of meat. Besides, we were in no condition to take the trouble to eat it roasted, since we could better digest it raw. Such was the life we led there. What little food we had we earned from the trinkets we made with our own hands.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

How We Left after Having Eaten the Dogs

After we ate the dogs, we thought we had enough strength to press onward. Commending ourselves to God our Lord to guide us, we said good-bye to those Indians. They led us to others near there who spoke their language. It rained all day long on the way. Besides this, we lost our way and ended up in a very large woodland. We gathered many prickly pear leaves and roasted them that night in an oven that we made. We heated them so much that by morning they were ready to be eaten. After eating them, we commended ourselves to God and departed. We found the trail that we had lost.

Once out of the woods, we found some Indian dwellings. When we reached them, we saw two women and some children who were around the Woods. They were frightened. When they saw us, they fled and went to call some Indians who were in the woods. When they came, they stayed behind some trees to look at us. We called them and they came very fearfully. After we talked to them, they said that they were very