of the author into English, but
    chiefly owing to the innate stupidity and gross ignorance of the poor
    anchorite, that the present editor was much inclined to have expunged
    the whole as unsatisfactory and uninteresting:  But it seemed incumbent
    to give the whole of this most important voyage to the public.  The
    Editor however, has used the freedom to compress the scrambling detail
    of the original of this section into a smaller compass; to omit the
    uselessly prolix titles of its subdivisions; and, where possible, to
    make the intended meaning somewhat intelligible; always carefully
    retaining every material circumstance.  It was formerly divided into
    chapters like a regular treatise, and these are here marked by
    corresponding figures.  The author repeatedly acknowledges that his
    account is very imperfect, which he attributes to the confused and
    contradictory reports of the natives, and allows that he may even have
    set down the information he collected in wrong order, and may have
    omitted many circumstances for want of paper at the time of collecting
    materials.—­E.

[2] Some of these are so unintelligibly related, owing to ignorance in the
    translator, that it were unnecessary to insert them in this place.—­E.

[3] The poor anchorite relates all these absurdities gravely, as actually
    proceeding from sorcery.—­E.

[4] In this paragraph, marked 20—­24. the substance of five prolix
    chapters by F.  Roman is compressed.—­E.

[5] Though not expressed in the text, these were probably the manico root,
    of which the cassada bread is made.—­E

[6] It is singular that the author should not have endeavoured to account
    for the origin of these iron hatchets; probably procured in the
    plundering excursions of these Carib natives of Guadaloupe from
    Hispaniola.—­E.

[7] This surely means no more than that their rude looms were upright or
    perpendicular.—­E.

[8] The probable use of these swaths may have been to defend the legs in
    forcing their way through the thorny brakes of the forests.—­E.

[9] The author seems to have forgotten that he had only a little before
    mentioned this very woman as the wife of a caceque.  The absurd notion
    of these women being Amazons probably proceeded from the Spaniards not
    understanding the language of these islanders, who appear to have been
    Caribs.  The truth seems to have been that during the long absences of
    their husbands in piratical and plundering excursions to the other
    islands, these Carib women were driven to the necessity of providing
    for their own defence.—­E.