Page:The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse.pdf/184

told me that I still had some time to live. And they brought all their gods that were in the huts, and placed them round about me and said, that those had prophesied, that they would capture a Portuguese. Then said I, These things have no power, and also cannot speak, and they lie (in asserting) that I am a Portuguese, for I am one of the Frenchmen's allies and friends, and the country where I am at home (to which I belong), is called Allemanien. Then they said that I must lie, for if I was the Frenchmen's friend, what was I doing among the Portuguese? They knew full well that the Frenchmen were just as much the enemies of the Portuguese as they. For the Frenchmen came every year with ships, and brought them knives, axes, looking-glasses, combs, and scissors, and for these they gave them Brazil wood, cotton and other goods, such as featherwork and (red) pepper. Therefore they were their good friends, which the Portuguese had not been. For these had in former years. come into the country, and had, in the parts where they were still settled, contracted friendship with their enemies. After that time, they (ie, the Portuguese) had also come to them, and they had in good faith gone to their ships and entered them, in the same manner in which they to the present day did with the French ships. They said moreover that when the Portuguese had collected enough of them in the ship, they had then attacked them and bound them, and delivered them up to their enemies who had killed and eaten them. Some of them also they had shot dead with their guns, and much more had the Portuguese in their haughty presumption done to them, having also often joined with their enemies for the purpose of capturing them in war.