On its voyage the fleet touched at the island of Guadalupe for wood and water. This island was inhabited by a barbarous and inhuman race, bare of any sort of clothing, and (what is worse) bare of any sort of pity; for they had no pity upon those who, without doing them any harm, came there to get water which would be wasted in the sea, and wood for which they had no use whatsoever. There were in the fleet the Marqués de Montes Claros, going to be viceroy of Nueva España, and, as commander, Don Fulgencio de Meneses y Toledo; and on the eve of our father St. Dominic, twenty-five soldiers having gone ashore as a guard with an ensign in command, all those on board the fleet went ashore and mass was said as the religious had desired. After that, the religious and all the rest went to wash their clothes and to bathe themselves, of which there was great need. The sailors went to get wood and water. Being all more widely scattered than was proper, they failed to keep a proper lookout, when they ought to have been more on their guard against the peril which menaced them. The islanders, taking advantage of the opportunity to carry out their evil purpose, came down close to them, being hidden in the thick undergrowth of the mountain. They began to shoot arrows at the Spaniards when the Spaniards were not keeping a lookout, and when they themselves had the advantage. This they did so rapidly and in such numbers that it seemed as if it rained arrows. When the Indians were perceived many were already wounded, and much blood had been shed. The surprise and confusion threw the crew into a panic, and huddling together in a frightened group they fled, each man striving to put himself in safety--one leaping into the boat to go back to the ship; another throwing himself into the sea, which was then regarded as more pitiful than the land; still another hiding himself among the trees and letting the savages pass as they shot their arrows at those whom they found ahead of them, and letting them pick up as spoils the clothes which he had been washing, or which were now being dried after the washing. Those who could do least to resist the attack of the islanders were the religious; and hence many of them fell wounded and others dead, for it was easier to draw their souls from them than to draw out the arrows. Three of them hid themselves in a thicket, where the Lord delivered them from a shower of arrows which were shot after them as they went to hide. Holding a little [image of] Christ in their hands, they begged him earnestly that he would blind the savages that they might not see them and might pass them by. The Lord heard them, and thus, though the islanders saw them hide themselves and shot many arrows after them, yet the arrows did not strike them; and the Indians, who are keener than mastiffs in discovering people, could not find them, though they passed the place where they were.