Columbus sends a man for gold as 55 armed men wait ashore

… and that they must be a daring people, since they go about all these islands and eat the people they can get. He says that he understood some words, and by it, so he says, he gathers other things, and that the Indians he carried with him understood more, although he found a difference of languages because of the great distance between the lands. He ordered the Indian to be given food, and gave him pieces of green and red cloth, and little glass beads, of which they are very fond, and sent him back ashore, and told him to bring gold if there was any, which he believed there was from some little things of his that he carried. When the boat reached land, there were behind the trees a good 55 men, naked, with very long hair, just as women wear it in Castile. Behind the head they wore plumes of the feathers of parrots and other birds, and each one carried his bow. The Indian went ashore and made the others lay down their bows and arrows, and a piece of wood that is like a…, very heavy, which they carry in place of a sword; …