The Indians Bring Us Food
Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
At sunset, the Indians thinking that we had not
gone, came to seek us and bring us food; but when
they saw us thus, in a plight so different from what it
was before, and so extraordinary, they were alarmed
and turned back. I went toward them and called,
when they returned much frightened. I gave them to
understand by signs that our boat had sunk and three
of our number had been drowned. There, before
them, they saw two of the departed, and we who re-
mained were near joining them. The Indians, at sight
of what had befallen us, and our state of suffering and
melancholy destitution, sat down among us, and from
the sorrow and pity they felt, they all began to lament
so earnestly that they might have been heard at a dis-
tance, and continued so doing more than half an hour.
It was strange to see these men, wild and untaught,
howling like brutes over our misfortunes. It caused
in me as in others, an increase of feeling and a livelier
sense of our calamity.
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