They observe this custom with so great strictness, that if any one should violate it, all the others would immediately put him to death.

None of these islands has a king, or recognized ruler, to whom the rest are subject; therefore each person lives to suit himself.

Between the inhabitants of certain of the islands a state of hostility prevails, whenever occasion offers, as happened while Spaniards were in the port of the said island.

At the point where the Spaniards anchored, as many as two hundred small boats filled with natives came to the ships to sell fowls, cocoa-nuts, potatoes, and other products of those islands, and to buy in exchange things carried by our men--especially iron, of which they were particularly fond, and glass articles, and other trifles.

There was a great contest to see which of the canoes would reach the ship first, and their occupants came to blows, wounding each other as savagely as wild beasts, so that many died in the presence of our men.