Note 409-4 — THE FOURTH VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS

The account in the Historie is radically at variance with this. The girls were brought on board and “showed themselves very brave since although the Christians in looks, acts, and race were very strange, they gave no signs of distress or sadness, but maintained a cheerful and modest (honesto) bearing, wherefore they were very well treated by the Admiral who gave them clothes and something to eat and then sent them back.” Historie, p. 299. Ferdinand gives the ages as eight and fourteen and says nothing of witchcraft except that the Indians were frightened and thought they were being bewitched when Bartholomew the next day ordered the ships’ clerks to write down the replies he got to his questions; ibid.