But let us pass to other details. Hardly had the Spaniards landed when divers adventures overtook them. An excellent doctor of Seville, whom the authority of the bishop[4] and likewise his desire to obtain gold prevented from peacefully ending his days in his native country, was surprised by a thunderbolt when sleeping quietly with his wife. The house with all its furniture was burnt and the bewildered doctor and his wife barely escaped, almost naked and half roasted. Once when a dog eight months old was wandering on the shore, a big crocodile snapped him up, like a hawk seizing a chicken as its prey; he swallowed this miserable dog under the very eyes of all the Spaniards, while the unfortunate animal yelped to his master for help. During the night the men were tortured by bats, which bit them; and if one of these animals bit a man while he was asleep, he lost his blood, and was in danger of losing his life. It is even claimed that some people did die on account of these wounds. If these bats find a cock or a hen at night in the open air, they strike them on their combs and kill them. The country is infested by crocodiles, lions, and tigers, but measures have already been taken to kill a large number of them. It is reported that the skins of lions and tigers killed by the natives are found in their cabins. Horses, pigs, and oxen grow rapidly, and become larger than their sires. This development is due to the fertility of the soil. The reports concerning the size of trees, different products of the earth, vegetables, and plants we have acclimatised, the deer, savage quadrupeds, and the different varieties of fish and birds, are in accordance with my previous descriptions.

[Note 4: Referring doubtless to Juan de Fonseca bishop of Burgos.]

The cacique Careta, ruler of Coiba, was the Spaniards' guest for three days. He admired the musical instruments, the trappings of the horses, and all the things he had never known. He was dismissed with handsome presents. Careta informed the Spaniards that there grew in his province a tree, of which the wood was suitable for the construction of ships, since it was never attacked by marine worms. It is known that the ships suffered greatly from these pests in the ports of the New World. This particular wood is so bitter that the worms do not even attempt to gnaw into it. There is another tree peculiar to this country whose leaves produce swellings if they touch the naked skin, and unless sea-water or the saliva of a man who is fasting be not at once applied, these blisters produce painful death. This tree also grows in Hispaniola. It is claimed that to smell its wood is fatal, and it cannot be transported anywhere without risk of death. When the islanders of Hispaniola sought in vain to shake off the yoke of servitude, either by open resistance or secret plots, they tried to smother the Spaniards in their sleep by the smoke of this wood. Astonished at seeing the wood scattered about them, the Spaniards forced the wretched natives to confess their plot and punished the authors of it. The natives likewise are acquainted with a plant whose smell fortifies them, and serves as remedy against the odour of this tree, making it possible for them to handle the wood. These particulars are futile; and this enough on this subject.

The Spaniards hoped to find still greater riches in the islands of the South Sea. When the courier who brought this news started, Pedro Arias was preparing an expedition[5] to an island lying in the midst of the gulf the Spaniards have named San Miguel, and which Vasco did not touch, owing to a rough sea. I have already spoken at length of it in describing the expedition of Vasco to the South Sea. We daily expect to hear of fresh exploits excelling the former ones, for a number of other provinces have been conquered, and we sincerely hope that they will not prove useless nor devoid of claims to our admiration.

[Note 5: This expedition under the command of Gaspar Morales was unsuccessful.]

Juan Diaz Solis de Nebrissa, whom we have already mentioned, has been sent to double Cape San Augustin, which belongs to the Portuguese, and lies seven degrees below the equinoctial line. He should go towards the south, below Paria, Cumana, Coquibacoa, and the harbours of Carthagena, and Santa Marta, in order that our knowledge of the continent may be more precise and extensive. Another commander, Juan Pons, has been sent with three ships to ravage the islands of the Caribs and reduce to slavery these filthy islanders, who feed on men. The other islands in the neighbourhood, which are inhabited by mild-mannered people, will thus be delivered from this pest and may be explored, and the character of their products discovered.

Other explorers have been sent out in different directions: Gaspar de Badajoz, towards the west; Francisco Bezarra and Vallejo, the first by the extremity of the gulf and the other along the western shore of its entrance, will seek to lay bare the secrets of that country where formerly Hojeda sought, under such unhappy circumstances, to settle. They will build there a fort and a town. Gaspar de Badajoz, with eighty well-armed men, was the first to leave Darien; Ludovico Mercado followed him with fifty others; Bezarra had eighty men under his orders, and Vallejo seventy. Whether they will succeed or will fall into dangerous places, only the providence of the Great Architect knows. We men are forced to await the occurrence of events before we can know them. Let us go on to another subject.



BOOK VII

Pedro Arias, the governor of what is supposed to be a continent, had hardly left Spain and landed at Darien, with the larger number of his men, than I received news of the arrival at Court of Andreas Morales. This man, who is a ship's pilot, familiar with these coasts, came on business. Morales had carefully and attentively explored the land supposed to be a continent, as well as the neighbouring islands and the interior of Hispaniola. He was commissioned by the brother of Nicholas Ovando, Grand Commander of the Order of Alcantara and governor of the island, to explore Hispaniola. He was chosen because of his superior knowledge and also because he was better equipped than others to fulfil that mission. He has moreover compiled itineraries and maps, in which everybody who understands the question has confidence. Morales came to see me, as all those who come back from the ocean habitually do. Let us now examine the heretofore unknown particulars I have learned from him and from several others. A detailed description of Hispaniola may serve as an introduction to this narrative, for is not Hispaniola the capital and the market where the most precious gifts of the ocean accumulate?

Round about the island lie a thousand and more Nereid nymphs, fair, graceful, and elegant, serving as its ornaments like to another Tethys, their queen and their mother. By Nereids I mean to say the islands scattered round about Hispaniola, concerning which we shall give some brief information. Afterwards will come the island of pearls which our compatriots call Rico, and which lies in the gulf of San Miguel in the South Sea. It has already been explored and marvellous things found; and yet more wonderful are promised for the future, for its brilliant pearls are worthy to figure in the necklaces, bracelets, and crown of a Cleopatra. It will not be out of place at the close of this narrative to say something of the shells which produce these pearls. Let us now come to this elysian Hispaniola, and begin by explaining its name; after which we will describe its conformation, its harbours, climate, and conclude by the divisions of its territory.

We have spoken in our First Decade of the island of Matanino, a word pronounced with the accent on the last syllable. Not to return too often to the same subject, Your Holiness will note the accent marking all these native words is placed where it should fall. It is claimed that the first inhabitants of Hispaniola were islanders of Matanino, who had been driven from that country by hostile factions and had arrived there in their canoes dug out of a single tree-trunk, by which I mean to say their barques. Thus did Dardanus arrive from Corythus and Teucer from Crete, in Asia, in the region later called the Trojade. Thus did the Tyrians and the Sidonians, under the leadership of the fabulous Dido, reach the coasts of Africa. The people of Matanino, expelled from their homes, established themselves in that part of the island of Hispaniola called Cahonao, upon the banks of a river called Bahaboni. In like manner we read in Roman history that the Trojan AEneas, after he arrived in Italy, established himself on the banks of the Latin Tiber. There lies across the mouth of the river Bahaboni an island where, according to tradition, these immigrants built their first house, calling it Camoteia. This place was consecrated and henceforth regarded with great veneration. Until the arrival of the Spaniards the natives rendered it the homage of their continual gifts; the same as we do Jerusalem, the cradle of our religion; or the Turks, Mecca, or the ancient inhabitants of the Fortunate Isles venerated the summit of a high rock on the Grand Canary. Many of these latter, singing joyous canticles, threw themselves down from the summit of this rock, for their false priests had persuaded them that the souls of those who threw themselves from the rock for the love of Tirana, were blessed, and destined to an eternity of delight. The conquerors of the Fortunate Isles have found that practice still in use in our own time, for the remembrance of these sacrifices is preserved in the common language, and the rock itself keeps its name. I have, moreover, recently learned that there still exists in those islands since their colonisation by the Frenchman Bethencourt under the authorisation of the King of Castile, a group of Bethencourt's people, who still use the French language and customs. Nevertheless, his heirs, as I have above stated, sold the island to the Castilians, but the colonists who came with Bethencourt built houses in the archipelago and prosperously maintained their families. They still live there mixed with Spaniards and consider themselves fortunate to be no longer exposed to the rigours of the French climate.

Let us now return to the people at Matanino. Hispaniola was first called by its early inhabitants Quizqueia, and afterwards Haiti. These names were not chosen at random, but were derived from natural features, for Quizqueia in their language means "something large" or larger than anything, and is a synonym for universality, the whole; something in the sense that [Greek: pan] was used among the Greeks. The islanders really believed that the island, being so great, comprised the entire universe, and that the sun warmed no other land than theirs and the neighbouring islands. Thus they decided to call it Quizqueia. The name Haiti[1] in their language means altitude, and because it describes a part, was given to the entire island. The country rises in many places into lofty mountain-ranges, is covered with dense forests, or broken into profound valleys which, because of the height of the mountains, are gloomy; everywhere else it is very agreeable.

[Note 1: Meaning in the Caribs' language mountainous. Columbus, as we have mentioned, named the island Hispaniola, and it is so called in early American history; but since 1803, the native name of Haiti or Hayti has been applied both to the entire island, and to one of the two states into which it is divided, the other state being called Santo Domingo.]

Permit at this point, Most Holy Father, a digression. Your Beatitude will no doubt ask with astonishment how it comes that such uncivilised men, destitute of any knowledge of letters, have preserved for such a long time the tradition of their origin. This has been possible because from the earliest times, and chiefly in the houses of the caciques; the bovites, that is to say the wise men, have trained the sons of the caciques, teaching them their past history by heart. In imparting their teaching they carefully distinguish two classes of studies; the first is of a general interest, having to do with the succession of events; the second is of a particular interest, treating of the notable deeds accomplished in time of peace or time of war by their fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and all their ancestors. Each one of these exploits is commemorated in poems written in their language. These poems are called arreytos. As with us the guitar player, so with them the drummers accompany these arreytos and lead singing choirs. Their drums are called maguay. Some of the arreytos are love songs, others are elegies, and others are war songs; and each is sung to an appropriate air. They also love to dance, but they are more agile than we are; first, because nothing pleases them better than dancing and, secondly, because they are naked, and untrammelled by clothing. Some of the arreytos composed by their ancestors predicted our arrival, and these poems resembling elegies lament their ruin. "Magnacochios [clothed men] shall disembark in the island armed with swords and with one stroke cut a man in two, and our descendants shall bend beneath their yoke."

I really am not very much astonished that their ancestors predicted the slavery of their descendants, if everything told concerning their familiar relations with devils is true. I discussed this subject at length in the ninth book of my First Decade, when treating of the zemes, that is to say the idols they worship. Since their zemes have been taken away the natives admit they no longer see spectres; and our compatriots believe this is due to the sign of the cross, with which they are all armed when washed in the waters of baptism.

All the islanders attach great importance to know the frontiers and limits of the different tribes. It is generally the mitaines, that is to say nobles, as they are called, who attend to this duty, and they are very skilful in measuring their properties and estates. The people have no other occupation than sowing and harvesting. They are skillful fishermen, and every day during the whole year they dive into the streams, passing as much time in the water as on land. They are not neglectful, however, of hunting, they have, as we have already said, utias, which resemble small rabbits, and iguana serpents, which I described in my First Decade. These latter resemble crocodiles and are eight feet long, living on land and having a good flavour. Innumerable birds are found in all the islands: pigeons, ducks, geese, and herons. The parrots are as plentiful here as sparrows amongst us. Each cacique assigns different occupations to his different subjects, some being sent hunting, others to fish, others to cultivate the fields. But let us return to the names.

We have already said that Quizqueia and Haiti are the ancient names of the island. Some natives also call the island Cipangu, from the name of a mountain range rich in gold. In like manner our poets have called Italy Latium, after one of its provinces, and our ancestors also called Italy Ausonia and Hesperia, just as these islanders have given the names Quizqueia, Haiti, and Cipangu to their country. In the beginning the Spaniards called the island Isabella after the Queen Isabella, taking this name from the first colony they founded there. I have already spoken sufficiently of this in my First Decade. They afterwards called it Hispaniola, a diminutive of Hispania. This is enough concerning names; let us now pass to the conformation of the island.

The first explorers of the island have described it to me as resembling in form a chestnut leaf, split by a gulf on the western side opposite the island of Cuba; but the captain, Andreas Morales, now gives me another and somewhat different description. He represents the island as being cut into, at the eastern and western extremities, by large gulfs,[2] having far extending points of land. He indicates large and secure harbours in the gulf facing eastwards. I will see to it that some day a copy of this map of Hispaniola be sent to Your Holiness, for Morales has drawn it in the same form as those of Spain and Italy, which Your Holiness has often examined, showing their mountains, valleys, rivers, towns, and colonies. Let us boldly compare Hispaniola to Italy, formerly the mistress of the universe. In point of size Hispaniola is a trifle smaller than Italy. According to the statements of recent explorers, it extends five hundred and forty miles from east to west. As we have already noticed in our First Decade, the Admiral had exaggerated its length. In certain places the width of Hispaniola extends to three hundred miles. It is narrower at the point where the land is prolonged in promontories, but it is much more favoured than Italy for, throughout the greatest part of its extent, it enjoys such an agreeable climate that neither the rigours of cold nor excessive heats are known.[3] The two solstices are about equal to the equinoxes. There is only one hour of difference between day and night, according as one lives on the southern or the northern coast of the island.

[Note 2: On the east is the gulf or bay of Samana, on the west that of Gonaires.]

[Note 3: The superficial area of Haiti is 77,255 square kilometres. The climatic conditions no longer correspond to Peter Martyr's descriptions, as there are four seasons, recognised, two rainy and two dry. In the upland, the temperature is invigorating and wholesome.]

In several parts of the island, however, cold does prevail; Your Holiness will understand that this is due to the position of the mountain ranges, as I shall later demonstrate. The cold, however, is never sufficiently severe to inconvenience the islanders with snow. Perpetual spring and perpetual autumn prevail in this fortunate island. During the entire year the trees are covered with leaves, and the prairies with grass. Everything in Hispaniola grows in an extraordinary fashion. I have already related elsewhere that the vegetables, such as cabbages, lettuces, salads, radishes, and other similar plants, ripen within sixteen days, while pumpkins, melons, cucumbers, etc., require but thirty days. We have also stated that animals brought from Spain, such as oxen, attain a greater size. When describing the growth of these animals, it is claimed that the oxen resemble elephants and the pigs, mules; but this is an exaggeration. Pork has an agreeable taste and is wholesome, because the pigs feed upon mirobolanes and other island fruits, which grow wild in the forests, just as in Europe they eat beech nuts, ilex berries, and acorns. Grape-vines also grow in an extraordinary fashion, despite the absence of all attention. If any one chooses to sow wheat in a mountain region exposed to the cold, it flourishes wonderfully, but less so in the plain, because the soil is too fertile. To one unheard-of-thing people have certified upon oath; that the ears are as thick round as a man's arm and one palm in length, and that some of them contain as many as a thousand grains of wheat. The best bread found in the island is that made from the yucca, and is called cazabi. It is most digestible, and the yucca is cultivated and harvested in the greatest abundance and with great facility. Whatever free time afterwards remains, is employed in seeking gold.

The quadrupeds are so numerous that already the exportation to Spain of horses and other animals and of hides has begun; thus the daughter gives assistance in many things to the mother. I have already elsewhere given particulars concerning red wood, mastic, perfumes, green colouring material, cotton, amber, and many other products of this island. What greater happiness could one wish in this world than to live in a country where such wonders are to be seen and enjoyed? Is there a more agreeable existence than that one leads in a country where one is not forced to shut himself in narrow rooms to escape cold that chills or heat that suffocates? A land where it is not necessary to load the body with heavy clothing in winter, or to toast one's legs at a continual fire, a practice which ages people in the twinkling of the eye, exhausts their force, and provokes a thousand different maladies. The air of Hispaniola is stated to be salubrious, and the rivers which flow over beds of gold, wholesome. There are indeed no rivers nor mountains nor very few valleys where gold is not found. Let us close now with a brief description of the interior of this fortunate island.

Hispaniola possesses four rivers, each flowing from mountain sources and dividing the island into four almost equal parts. One of these streams, the Iunna, flows east. Another, the Attibunicus, west; the third, the Naiba, south, and the fourth, the Iaccha, north. We have already related that Morales proposes a new division, by which the island would be divided into five districts. We shall give to each of these little states its ancient name and shall enumerate whatever is worthy of note in each of them.

The most eastern district of the island belongs to the province of Caizcimu, and is thus called because cimu means in their language the front or beginning of anything. Next come the provinces of Huhabo and Cahibo; the fourth is Bainoa, and the extreme western part belongs to the province of Guaccaiarima; but that of Bainoa is larger than the three preceding ones. Caizcimu extends from the point of the island as far as the river Hozama, which flows by Santo Domingo, the capital. Its northern border is marked by precipitous mountains,[4] which on account of their steepness especially bear the name of Haiti. The province of Huhabo lies between the mountains of Haiti and the Iacaga River. The third province Cahibo, includes all the country lying between the Cubaho and the Dahazio rivers as far as the mouth of Iaccha, one of the rivers dividing the islands into four equal parts. This province extends to the Cibao Mountains, where much gold is found. In these mountains rises the River Demahus. The province also extends to the sources of the Naiba River, the third of the four streams and the one which flows south, towards the other bank of the Santo Domingo River.

[Note 4: Now called Sierra de Monte Cristo, of which the loftiest peak, Toma Diego Campo, is 1220 metres high.]

Bainoa begins at the frontier of Cahibo, and extends as far as the island of Cahini, almost touching the north coast of Hispaniola at the place where the colony was once founded. The remainder of the island along the west coast forms the province of Guaccaiarima, thus called because it is the extremity of the island. The word Iarima means a flea. Guaccaiarima means, therefore, the flea of the island; Gua being the article in their language. There are very few of their names, particularly those of kings which do not begin with this article gua., such as Guarionex and Guaccanarillus; and the same applies to many names of places.

The districts or cantons of Caizcimu are Higuey, Guanama, Reyre, Xagua, Aramana, Arabo, Hazoa, Macorix, Caicoa, Guiagua, Baguanimabo, and the rugged mountains of Haiti. Let us remark in this connection that there are no aspirates pronounced in Hispaniola, as amongst the Latin peoples. In the first place, in all their words the aspirate produces the effect of a consonant, and is more prolonged than the consonant f, amongst us. Nor is it pronounced by pressing the under lip against the upper teeth. On the contrary the mouth is opened wide, ha, he, hi, ho, hu. I know that the Jews and the Arabs pronounce their aspirates in the same way, and the Spaniards do likewise with words they have taken from the Arabs who were for a long time their masters. These words are sufficiently numerous; almohada = a pillow; almohaza = a horse-comb, and other similar words, which are pronounced by holding the breath. I insist upon this point because it often happens among the Latins that an aspirate changes the significance of a word; thus hora means a division of the day, ora which is the plural of os, the mouth, and ora meaning region, as in the phrase Trojae qui primus ab oris. The sense changes according to the accent: occīdo and occĭdo. It is consequently necessary to heed the accents and not neglect the aspirate in speaking the language of these simple people. I have spoken above about the accent and the article gua.

[Note: ī is a long 'i', and ĭ is a short 'i'.]

The cantons of the province of Hubabo are Xamana, Canabaco, Cubao, and others whose names I do not know. The cantons of Magua and Cacacubana belong to the province of Cahibo. The natives in this province speak an entirely different language from that spoken by the other islanders; they are called Macoryzes. In the canton of Cubana another language resembling none of the others is spoken; it is likewise used in the canton of Baiohaigua. The other cantons of Cahibo are Dahaboon, Cybaho, Manabaho, Cotoy, the last being situated in the centre of the island and traversed by the Nizaus River, and finally the mountains Mahaitin, Hazua, and Neibaymao.

Bainoa, the fourth province has the following dependent cantons: Maguana, Iagohaiucho, Bauruco, Dabaigua, and Attibuni which takes this name from the river; Caunoa, Buiaz, Dahibonici, Maiaguarite, Atiec, Maccazina, Guahabba, Anninici, Marien, Guarricco, Amaquei, Xaragua, Yaguana, Azzuei, Iacchi, Honorucco, Diaguo, Camaie, Neibaimao. In the last province, Guaccaiarima, lie the cantons of Navicarao, Guabaqua, Taquenazabo, Nimaca, Little Bainoa, Cahaymi, Ianaizi, Manabaxao, Zavana, Habacoa, and Ayqueroa.

Let us now give some particulars concerning the cantons themselves: the first gulf[5] found in the province of Caizcimu cuts into a rock where it has worn an immense cave situated at the foot of a lofty mountain about two stadia from the sea. Its vast arched entrance resembles the gates of a great temple. In obedience to an order from the government, Morales tried to enter this cavern with the ships. Several streams come together there through unknown channels, as in a drain. It used to be a mystery what became of a number of rivers ninety miles long, which suddenly disappeared under the earth never to be seen again. It is thought they are in some fashion swallowed up in the depths of the rocky mountain, continuing their underground course till they reach this cavern. Having succeeded in entering the cave, Morales was very nearly drowned. He reports that inside there are whirlpools and currents in incessant conflict, upon which his barque was tossed to and fro like a ball, amidst the horrible roar of the whirlpools and currents around him. He regretted having come, but could find no way to get out. He and his companions drifted about in the obscurity, not only because of the darkness prevailing in the cavern, which extends into the depths of the mountains, but also because of the perpetual mist rising from the constantly agitated waters, and resolving itself into damp vapours. Morales compared the noise of these waters to that of the falls of the Nile where it pours forth from the mountains of Ethiopia. Both he and his companions were so deafened they could not hear one another speak. He finally succeeded in finding the exit, and emerged from the cavern, trembling, feeling that he had left the infernal regions and returned to the upper world.[6]

[Note 5: The gulf of Samana; its extent is 1300 square kilometres.]

[Note 6: Evasit tandem pavidus de antro, veluti de Tartaro, putans rediisse ad superos.]

About sixty miles from Santo Domingo the capital, the horizon is shut in by lofty mountains, upon whose summit lies an inaccessible lake, to which no road leads. None of the colonists have visited it because of the steepness of the mountain. In obedience to the governor's orders Morales, taking a neighbouring cacique for his guide, ascended the mountain and found the lake. He reports that it was very cold there and, as a proof of the low temperature, he brought back some ferns and brambles, plants which do not grow in warm countries. The mountains are called Ymizui Hybahaino. The waters of the lake, which is three miles in circumference, are full of various kinds of fish. It is fed by several streams, and has no outlet, for it is surrounded on all sides by lofty peaks.

Let us now say a few words about another, Caspian or Hyrcanian sea (by which I mean a sea surrounded by land), and other fresh-water lakes.

BOOK VIII

The province of Bainoa, which is three times the size of the three provinces of Caizcimu, Huhabo, and Caihabon, embraces the valley of Caionani, in the midst of which there is a salt lake[1] of bitter, distasteful water, similar to what we read of the Caspian Sea. I will therefore call it Caspian, although it is not in Hyrcania. There are depths in this lake from which the salty waters pour forth and are absorbed in the mountains. These caverns are supposed to be so vast and so deep that even the largest sea-fish pass through them into the lake.

[Note 1: The lagune of Enriquillo on the plains of Neyba.]

Amongst these fish is the shark, which cuts a man in two with one bite and swallows him. These sharks come up from the sea by the Hozama River which flows past the capital of the island. They devour numbers of natives, since nothing will prevent the latter from bathing and washing themselves in the river. Many streams flow into the lake; the Guaninicabon, which flows from the north, is salt; the Haccoce flows from the south, the Guannabi from the east, and the Occoa from the west. These are the most important of the rivers and are always full. Besides them, a score of smaller ones also fall into this Caspian Sea. Not more than a stadium distant and on its northern shore are about two hundred springs, arranged in the form of a circle, from which fresh, potable water gushes forth, forming an impassable stream, which mingles with the others in the lake.

The cacique of that country finding his wife at prayer one day in a chapel built by the Christians in his territory, wished to have intercourse with her; but the wife, alleging the holiness of the spot refused, speaking as follows, Tei toca, tei toca, which means "Be quiet"; Techeta cynato guamechyna which signifies "God would be displeased." The cacique was very much vexed by this Techeta cynato guamechyna, and with a menacing gesture of his arm said, Guayva, which means "Get out," Cynato machabucha guamechyna, meaning, "What matters to me the anger of your God?" With which he overpowered his wife, but was struck dumb on the spot and half lost the use of his arm. Impressed by this miracle and overcome with repentance, he lived the rest of his life as a religious, and would not allow the chapel to be swept or decorated by other hands than his own. This miracle made a great impression upon many of the natives and upon all the Christians, and the chapel was frequented and respected by them. As for the cacique, he submissively endured without complaint the punishment for his insult. But let us return to the Caspian Sea.

This salt lake is swept by hurricanes and storms, so that the fishermen's boats are often in danger and frequently sink with all on board. Nor has any drowned body ever been found floating upon the waters or thrown upon the shore, as happens with those engulfed by the sea. These storms provide generous banquets for the sharks. The natives call this Caspian Sea, Haguygabon. In the midst of it lies a sterile island called Guarizacca, which serves as a refuge for fishermen. The lake is thirty miles long and twelve or, perhaps, even fifteen broad.

Another lake lies in the same plain and quite near to the former, of which the waters are bitter-sweet,[2] that is to say they are not pleasant to drink, but may be drunk in case of absolute necessity. It is twenty-five miles long by nine or ten broad, and is fed by a number of rivers. It has no outlet, and the water from the sea also reaches it, though in a small quantity; this accounts for its brackish waters. The third fresh-water lake, called Painagua, exists in the same province. It lies not very far to the west of the Caspian Sea. North of this same Caspian lies a fourth lake, of small importance, since it measures but four miles in length and a little more than one in width; it is called Guacca, and its waters are potable. South of the Caspian a fifth lake, called Babbareo is found; it is almost circular and about three miles in length. Its waters are fresh like those of the other two. As it has no outlet and its waters are not sucked down into caverns, it overflows its banks when swollen by torrents. Lake Babbareo lies in the Zamana district of the province of Bainoa. There is still another lake called Guanyban, near by and south-west of the Caspian; it is ten miles long and nearly round. Throughout the island are numerous other small lakes, which we do not mention for fear of being tiresome by too much insistence on the same subject. Nevertheless there is one more particular concerning the lakes and this is the last: All of them are full of fish, and support many birds. They are situated in an immense valley which extends from east to west for a distance of one hundred and twenty miles and a breadth, at the narrowest point of eighteen and at the broadest, of twenty-five miles. As one looks west the mountain chain of Duiguni borders this valley on the left, and on the right rises the range of Caigun, which gives its name to the valley at its base. Upon the northern slope begins another valley larger than the former, for it extends a distance of two hundred miles and a breadth of thirty miles at the broadest, and twenty miles at the narrowest part. This valley is called Maguana and sometimes Iguaniu or Hathathiei. Since we have mentioned this part of the valley called Atici, we must make a digression to introduce a miraculous sea fish.

[Note 2: Lago de Fondo ... aquarum salsodulcium...]

A certain cacique of the region, Caramatexius by name, was very fond of fishing. Upon one occasion a young fish of the gigantic species called by the natives manati was caught in his nets. I think this species of monster in unknown in our seas. It is shaped like a turtle and has four feet, but is covered with scales instead of shell. Its skin is so tough that it fears nothing from arrows, for it is protected by a thousand points. This amphibious creature has a smooth back, a head resembling that of a bull, and is tame rather than fierce. Like the elephant or the dolphin, it likes the companionship of men and is very intelligent. The cacique fed this young fish for several days with yucca bread, millet, and the roots the natives eat. While it was still young, he put it in a lake near to his house, as in a fish-pond. This lake, which had been called Guaurabo. was henceforth called Manati. For twenty-five years this fish lived at liberty in the waters of the lake, and grew to an extraordinary size. All that has been told about the lake of Baiae or the dolphins of Arion is not to be compared with the stories of this fish. They gave it the name of Matu, meaning generous or noble, and whenever one of the king's attendants, specially known by him, called from the bank Matu, Matu, the fish, remembering favours received, raised its head and came towards the shore to eat from the man's hand. Anyone who wished to cross the lake merely made a sign and the fish advanced to receive him on its back. One day it carried ten men altogether on its back, transporting them safely, while they sang and played musical instruments. If it perceived a Christian when it raised its head it dived under water and refused to obey. This was because it had once been beaten by a peevish young Christian, who threw a sharp dart at this amiable and domesticated fish. The dart did it no harm because of the thickness of its skin, which is all rough and covered with points, but the fish never forgot the attack, and from that day forth every time it heard its name called, it first looked carefully about to see if it beheld anybody dressed like the Christians. It loved to play upon the bank with the servants of the cacique, and especially with the young son who was in the habit of feeding it. It was more amusing than a monkey. This manati was for long a joy to the whole island, and many natives and Christians daily visited this animal.

It is said that the flesh of manatis is of good flavour, and they are found in great numbers in the waters of the island. The manati Matu finally disappeared. It was carried out to sea by the Attibunico, one of the four rivers which divide the island into equal parts, during an inundation accompanied by horrible typhoons which the islanders call hurricanes. The Attibunico overflowed its banks and inundated the entire valley, mingling its waters with those of all the lakes. The good, clever, sociable Matu, following the tide of the torrent, rejoined its former mother and the waters of its birth; it has never since been seen. But enough of this digression.

Let us now describe this valley. The valley of Atici is bordered by the Cibao and Cayguana Mountains, which enclose it in a southerly direction to the sea. Beyond the mountains of Cibao towards the north there opens another valley called the Guarionexius, because it has always belonged, from father to son and by hereditary right, to the caciques called Guarionexius. I have already spoken at length about this cacique in my first writings on Hispaniola and in my First Decade. This valley is one hundred and ninety miles long from east to west, and between thirty and fifty miles broad at its widest part. It begins at the district of Canabocoa, crosses the provinces of Huhabo and Cahibo, and ends in the province of Bainoa and in the district of Mariena. Along its borders extend the mountains of Cibao, Cahanao, Cazacubana. There is not a province or a district in it which is not noteworthy for the majesty of its mountains, the fertility of its valleys, the forests upon its hills, or the number of rivers watering it. Upon the slopes of all the mountains and hills, and in the river beds, gold in abundance is found; and in the latter, fish of delicious flavour; only one is to be excepted, which from its source in the mountains to the sea is perpetually salt. This river is called Bahaun, and flows through Maguana, a district of the province of Bainoa. It is thought that this river passes through chalk and saline strata, of which there are many in the island, and of which I shall later speak more fully.

We have noted that Hispaniola may be divided into four or five parts, by rivers or by provinces. Still another division may be made; the entire island might be divided by the four mountain chains which cut it in two from east to west. Everywhere there is wealth, and gold is everywhere found. From the caverns and gorges of these mountains pour forth all the streams which traverse the island. There are frightful caves, dark valleys, and arid rocks, but no dangerous animal has ever been found; neither lion, nor bear, nor fierce tiger, nor crafty fox, nor savage wolf. Everything thereabouts speaks of happiness and will do so still more, Most Holy Father, when all these thousands of people shall be gathered among the sheep of your flock, and those devil images, the zemes, shall have been banished.

You must not be vexed, Most Holy Father, if from time to time in the course of my narrative I repeat certain particulars, or allow myself some digressions. I feel myself carried away by a sort of joyous mental excitement, a kind of Delphic or Sibylline breath, when I read of these things; and I am, as it were, forced to repeat the same fact, especially when I realise to what an extent the propagation of our religion is involved. Yet amidst all these marvels and fertility, there is one point which causes me small satisfaction; these simple, naked natives were little accustomed to labour, and the immense fatigues they now suffer, labouring in the mines, is killing them in great numbers and reducing the others to such a state of despair that many kill themselves, or refuse to procreate their kind. It is alleged that the pregnant women take drugs to produce abortion, knowing that the children they bear will become the slaves of the Christians. Although a royal decree has declared all the islanders to be free, they are forced to work more than is fit for free men. The number of these unfortunate people diminishes in an extraordinary fashion. Many people claim that they formerly numbered more than twelve millions; how many there are to-day I will not venture to say, so much am I horrified.[3] Let us finish with this sad subject and return to the charms of this admirable Hispaniola.

[Note 3: The Brevissima Relacion de la Destruycion de las Indias, of Fray B. de las Casas, contains the most crushing indictment of Spanish colonial government ever penned. When every allowance has been made for the apostolic, or even the fanatical zeal, with which Las Casas defended his proteges and denounced their tormentors, the case against the Spanish colonists remains one of the blackest known to history. Just what the native population of Haiti and Cuba originally numbered is hardly ascertainable; twelve millions is doubtless an excessive estimate; but within twenty-five years of the discovery of America, the islanders were reduced to 14,000. Between 1507 and 1513 their numbers fell from 14,000 to 4000, and by 1750 not one remained. Consult Fabie, Vida y Escritos de Fray Bartolome de Las Casas (Madrid, 1879); MacNutt, Bartholomew de las Casas, his Life, his Apostolate, and his Writings, New York, 1910.]

In the mountains of Cibao, which are situated in about the centre of the island, and in the province of Cahibo where we have said the most gold was found, there lies a district called Cotohi. It is amongst the clouds, completely enclosed by mountain chains, and its inhabitants are numerous. It consists of a large plateau twenty-five miles in length and fifteen in breadth; and this plateau lies so high above the other mountains that the peaks surrounding it appear to give birth to the lesser mountains. Four seasons may be counted on this plateau: spring, summer, autumn, and winter; and the plants there wither, the trees lose their leaves and the fields dry up. This does not happen in the rest of the island, which only knows spring-time and autumn. Ferns, grass, and berry bushes grow there, furnishing undeniable proof of the cold temperature. Nevertheless the country is agreeable and the cold is not severe, for the natives do not suffer from it, nor are there snow storms., As a proof of the fertility of the soil it is alleged that the stalks of the ferns are thicker than javelins. The neighbouring mountainsides contain rich gold deposits but these mines will not be exploited because of the cold, which would make it necessary to give clothing even to those miners who are accustomed to that labour.

The natives are satisfied with very little; they are delicate and could not endure winter, for they live in the open air. Two rivers traverse this region, flowing from the high mountains which border it. The first, called Comoiaixa, flows towards the west and loses its name where it empties into the Naiba. The second, called the Tirechetus, flows east and empties into the Iunna.

When I passed the island of Crete on my journey to the Sultan,[4] the Venetians told me that there was a similar region on the summit of Mount Ida; this region, more than the rest of the island, produces a better wheat crop. Protected by the impassable roads which led to these heights, the Cretans revolted, and for a long time maintained an armed independence against the Senate of Venice. Finally, when weary of fighting, they decided to submit, and the Senate decreed their country should remain a desert. All avenues leading to it were guarded so that no one could go there without its consent.

[Note 4: De Legatione Babylonica.]

It was in that same year, 1502, that the Venetians again permitted this district to be cultivated, but by labourers incapable of using arms.

There is a district in Hispaniola called Cotoy, lying between the provinces of Huhabo and Cahibo. It is a sterile country having mountains, valleys, and plains, and is sparsely inhabited. Gold is found there in quantities, but instead of being in the form of ingots or grains, it is in solid masses of pure metal, deposited in beds of soft stone in the crevices of the rocks. The veins are discovered by breaking the rocks, and one such may be compared to a living tree, as from its root or starting-point it sends forth branches through the soft pores and open passages, right up to the summit of the mountains, never stopping till it reaches the surface of the earth. Bathed in the splendour of the atmosphere it brings forth its fruit, consisting of grains and nuggets. These grains and nuggets are afterwards washed away by the heavy rains and swept down the mountain, like all heavy bodies, to be disseminated throughout the entire island. It is thought the metal is not produced at the place where it is found, especially if that be in the open or in the river beds. The root of the golden tree seems always to reach down towards the centre of the earth, growing always larger; for the deeper one digs in the bowels of the mountain the larger are the grains of gold unearthed. The branches of the golden tree are in some places as slender as a thread, while others are as thick as a finger, according to the dimensions of the crevices. It sometimes happens that pockets full of gold are found; these being the crevices through which the branches of the golden tree pass. When these pockets are filled with the output from the trunk, the branch pushes on in search of another outlet towards the earth's surface. It is often stopped by the solid rock, but in other fissures it seems, in a manner, to be fed from the vitality of the roots.

You will ask me, Most Holy Father, what quantity of gold is produced in this island. Each year Hispaniola alone sends between four and five hundred thousand gold ducats to Spain. This is known from the fact that the royal fifth produces eighty, ninety, or a hundred thousand castellanos of gold, and sometimes even more. I shall explain later on what may be expected from Cuba and the island of San Juan, which are equally rich in gold. But we have spoken enough about gold; let us now pass on to salt, with which whatever we buy with gold is seasoned.

In a district of the province of Bainoa in the mountains of Daiagon, lying twelve miles from the salt lake of the Caspian, are mines of rock salt, whiter and more brilliant than crystal, and similar to the salts which so enrich the province of Laletania, otherwise called Catalonia, belonging to the Duke of Cardona, who is the chief noble of that region. People, in a position to compare the two, consider the salts of Bainoa the richer. It seems that it is necessary to use iron tools for mining the salt in Catalonia. It also crumbles very easily as I know by experience, nor is it harder than spongy stone. The salt of Bainoa is as hard as marble. In the province of Caizcimu and throughout the territories of Iguanama, Caiacoa, and Quatiaqua springs of exceptional character are found. At the surface their waters are fresh, a little deeper down they are salty and at the bottom they are heavily charged with salt. It is thought that the salt sea-water partially feeds them, and that the fresh waters on the surface flow from the mountains through subterranean passages. The salt-waters, therefore, remain at the bottom while the others rise to the surface, and the former are not sufficiently strong to entirely corrupt the latter. The waters of the middle strata are formed by a mixture of the two others, and share the characteristics of both.

By placing one's ear to the ground near the opening of one of these springs it is easily perceived that the earth is hollow underneath, for one may hear the steps of a horseman a distance of three miles and a man on foot a distance of one mile. It is said there is a district of savana in the most westerly province of Guaccaiarima, inhabited by people who only live in caverns and eat nothing but the products of the forest. They have never been civilised nor had any intercourse with any other races of men. They live, so it is said, as people did in the golden age, without fixed homes or crops or culture; neither do they have a definite language. They are seen from time to time, but it has never been possible to capture one, for if, whenever they come, they see anybody other than natives approaching them, they escape with the celerity of a deer. They are said to be quicker than French dogs.

Give ear, Most Holy Father, to a very amusing exploit of one of these savages. The Spaniards own cultivated fields along the edge of the woods and thick forests, which some of them went to visit, as though on a pleasure trip, in the month of September, 1514. All at once one of these dumb men suddenly emerged from the woods and smilingly picked up from the very midst of the Christians a young boy, son of the owner of the field, whose wife was a native. The savage fled, making signs that the people should follow him, so several Spaniards and a number of naked natives ran after the robber, without, however, being able to catch him. As soon as the facetious savage perceived the Spaniards had given up the pursuit, he left the child at a crossroads where the swineherds pass driving herds to pasture. One of these swineherds recognised the child and taking it in his arms brought it back to the father, who had been in despair, thinking this savage belonged to the Carib race, and mourning the child as dead.

Pitch, of a quality much harder and more bitter than that obtained from trees, is found on the reefs of Hispaniola. It consequently serves better to protect ships against the gnawings of the worms called bromas, of which I have elsewhere spoken at length. There are likewise two pitch-producing trees; one is the pine, and the other is called copeo. I shall say nothing about pines, for they grow everywhere; but let us speak a little about the copeo tree, and give a few details about the pitch and the fruit it produces. The pitch is obtained in the same manner as from pine-trees, though it is described as being gathered drop by drop from the burning wood. As for the fruit, it is as small as a plum and quite good to eat; but it is the foliage of the trees which possesses a very special quality. It is believed that this tree is the one whose leaves were used by the Chaldeans, the first inventors of writing, to convey their ideas to the absent before paper was invented. The leaf is as large as a palm and almost round. Using a needle or pin, or a sharp iron or wooden point, characters are traced upon it as easily as upon paper.

It is laughable to consider what the Spaniards have told the natives concerning these leaves. These good people believe the leaves speak in obedience to the command of the Spaniards. An islander had been sent by a Spaniard of Santo Domingo, the capital of Hispaniola, to one of his friends living in the interior of the colony. The messenger likewise carried some roasted utias which, as we have said, are rabbits. On the way, whether from hunger or greediness, he ate three; these animals not being larger than rats. The friend wrote upon one of these leaves what he had received. "Well, my man," the master then said, "you are a fine lad in whom to put confidence! So you have been so greedy as to eat the utias I gave you?" Trembling and amazed the native confessed his fault, but asked his master how he had discovered it. The Spaniard replied: "The leaf which you yourself have brought me has told me everything. Moreover, you reached my friend's house at such an hour and you left it at such another." In this way our people amuse themselves by mystifying these poor islanders, who think they are gods, with power to make the very leaves reveal what they believe to be secret. Thus the news spread through the island that the leaves speak in response to a sign from the Spaniards; and this obliges the islanders to be very careful of whatever is confided to them. Both sides of these leaves may be used for writing, just as is the case with our paper. Such a leaf is thicker than a piece of paper folded in two, and is extraordinarily tough; so much so that when it is freshly plucked, the letters stand out white upon a green ground, but when it dries it becomes white and hard like a piece of wood, and then these characters change to yellow; but they remain indelible until it is burnt, never disappearing, even when the leaf is wet.

There is another tree called the hagua, whose fruit when green exudes a juice which dyes so fast everything it touches a greenish black, that no washing can destroy this colour within twenty days. When the fruit ripens the juice no longer has this quality; it becomes edible and has a pleasant taste. There is an herb also, whose smoke produces death, like the wood which we have mentioned. Some caciques had decided to kill the Spaniards; but not daring to attack them openly, they planned to place numerous bunches of this herb in their houses and set fire to them, so that the Spaniards, who came to extinguish the flames, would breathe in the smoke with the germs of a fatal malady. This plot, however, was circumvented and the instigators of the crime were punished.

Since Your Holiness has deigned to write that you are interested in everything related concerning the new continent, let us now insert, irrespective of method, a number of facts. We have sufficiently explained how maize, agoes, yucca, potatoes, and other edible roots are sown, cultivated, and used. But we have not yet related how the Indians learned the properties of these plants; and it is that which we shall now explain.



BOOK IX

It is said that the early inhabitants of the islands subsisted for a long time upon roots and palms and magueys. The maguey[1] is a plant belonging to the class vulgarly called evergreen.

[Note 1: ...magueiorum quae est herba, sedo sive aizoo, quam vulgus sempervivam appellat, similis. (Jovis-barba, joubarbe, etc.)]

The roots of guiega are round like those of our mushrooms, and somewhat larger. The islanders also eat guaieros, which resemble our parsnips; cibaios, which are like nuts; cibaioes and macoanes, both similar to the onion, and many other roots. It is related that some years later, a bovite, i.e., a learned old man, having remarked a shrub similar to fennel growing upon a bank, transplanted it and developed therefrom a garden plant. The earliest islanders, who ate raw yucca, died early; but as the taste is exquisite, they resolved to try using it in different ways; boiled or roasted this plant is less dangerous. It finally came to be understood that the juice was poisonous; extracting this juice, they made from the cooked flour cazabi, a bread better suited to human stomachs than wheat bread, because it is more easily digested. The same was the case with other food stuffs and maize, which they chose amongst the natural products. Thus it was that Ceres discovered barley and other cereals amongst the seeds, mixed with slime, brought down by the high Nile from the mountains of Ethiopia and deposited on the plain when the waters receded, and propagated their culture.

For having thus indicated the seeds to be cultivated, the ancients rendered her divine honours. There are numerous varieties of agoes, distinguishable by their leaves and flowers. One of these species is called guanagax; both inside and out, it is of a whitish colour. The guaragua is violet inside and white outside; another species of agoes is zazaveios, red outside and white inside. Quinetes are white inside and red outside. The turma is purplish, the hobos yellowish and the atibunieix has a violet skin and a white pulp. The aniguamar is likewise violet outside and white inside and the guaccaracca is just the reverse; white outside and violet inside. There are many other varieties, upon which we have not yet received any report.

I am aware that in enumerating these species I shall provoke envious people, who will laugh when my writings reach them, at my sending such minute particulars to Your Holiness, who is charged with such weighty interests and on whose shoulders rests the burden of the whole Christian world. I would like to know from these envious, whether Pliny and the other sages famous for their science sought, in communicating similar details to the powerful men of their day, to be useful only to the princes with whom they corresponded. They mingled together obscure reports and positive knowledge, great things and small, generalities and details; to the end that posterity might, equally with the princes, learn everything together, and also in the hope that those who crave details and are interested in novelties, might be able to distinguish between different countries and regions, the earth's products, national customs, and the nature of things. Let therefore the envious laugh at the pains I have taken; for my part, I shall laugh, not at their ignorance, envy, and laziness, but at their deplorable cleverness, pitying their passions and recommending them to the serpents from which envy draws its venom. If I may believe what has been reported to me from Your Holiness by Galeazzo Butrigario and Giovanni Ruffo, Archbishop of Cosenza, who are the nunzios of your apostolic chair, I am certain that these details will please you. They are the latest trappings with which I have dressed, without seeking to decorate them, admirable things; indications merely and not descriptions; but you will not reject them. It will repay me to have burned the midnight oil in your interest, that the recollection of these discoveries may not be lost. Each takes the money that suits his purse. When a sheep or a pig is cut up, nothing of it remains by evening; for one man has taken the shoulder, another the rump, another the neck, and there are even some who like the tripes and the feet. But enough of this digression on the subject of envious men and their fury; let us rather describe how the caciques congratulate their fellows when a son is born; and how they shape the beginning of their existence to its end, and why every one of them is pleased to bear several names.

When a child is born, all the caciques and neighbours assemble and enter the mother's chamber. The first to arrive salutes the child and gives it a name, and those who follow do likewise; "Hail, brilliant lamp," says one; "Hail, thou shining one," says another; or perhaps "Conqueror of enemies," "Valiant hero," "More resplendent than gold," and so on. In this wise the Romans bore the titles of their parents and ancestors: Adiabenicus, Particus, Armenicus, Dacicus, Germanicus. The islanders do the same, in adopting the names given them by the caciques. Take, for instance, Beuchios Anacauchoa, the ruler of Xaragua, of whom and his sister, the prudent Anacaona, I have already spoken at length in my First Decade. Beuchios Anacauchoa was also called Tareigua Hobin, which means "prince resplendent as copper." So likewise Starei, which means "shining"; Huibo, meaning "haughtiness"; Duyheiniquem, meaning a "rich river." Whenever Beuchios Anacauchoa publishes an order, or makes his wishes known by heralds' proclamation, he takes great care to have all these names and forty more recited. If, through carelessness or neglect, a single one were omitted, the cacique would feel himself grievously outraged; and his colleagues share this view.

Let us now examine their peculiar practices when drawing up their last wills. The caciques choose as heir to their properties, the eldest son of their sister, if such a one exists; and if the eldest sister has no son, the child of the second or third sister is chosen. The reason is, that this child is bound to be of their blood. They do not consider the children of their wives as legitimate. When there are no children of their sisters, they choose amongst those of their brothers, and failing these, they fall back upon their own. If they themselves have no children, they will their estates to whomsoever in the island is considered most powerful, that their subjects may be protected by him against their hereditary enemies. They have as many wives as they choose, and after the cacique dies the most beloved of his wives is buried with him. Anacaona, sister of Beuchios Anacauchoa, King of Xaragua, who was reputed to be talented in the composition of areytos, that is to say poems, caused to be buried alive with her brother the most beautiful of his wives or concubines, Guanahattabenecheua; and she would have buried others but for the intercession of a certain sandal-shod Franciscan friar, who happened to be present. Throughout the whole island there was not to be found another woman so beautiful as Guanahattabenecheua. They buried with her her favourite necklaces and ornaments, and in each tomb a bottle of water and a morsel of cazabi bread were deposited.

There is very little rain either in Xaragua, the kingdom of Beuchios Anacauchoa, or in the Hazua district of the country called Caihibi; also in the valley of the salt- and fresh-water lakes and in Yacciu, a district or canton of the province of Bainoa. In all these countries are ancient ditches, by means of which the islanders irrigate their fields as intelligently as did the inhabitants of New Carthage, called Spartana, or those of the kingdom of Murcia, where it rarely rains. The Maguana divides the provinces of Bainoa from that of Caihibi, while the Savana divides it from Guaccaiarima. In the deeper valleys there is a heavier rainfall than the natives require, and the neighbourhood of Santo Domingo is likewise better watered than is necessary, but everywhere else the rainfall is moderate. The same variations of temperature prevail in Hispaniola as in other countries.

I have enumerated in my First Decade the colonies established in Hispaniola by the Spaniards, and since that time they have founded the small towns of Porto de la Plata, Porto Real, Lares, Villanova, Assua, and Salvatiera. Let us now describe these of the innumerable neighbouring islands which are known and which we have already compared to the Nereids, daughters of Tethys, and their mother's ornament. I shall begin with the nearest one, which is remarkable because of another fountain of Arethusa, but which serves no purpose. Six miles distant from the coast of the mother island lies an isle which the Spaniards, ignoring its former name, call Dos Arboles [Two Trees], because only two trees grow there. It is near them that a spring, whose waters flow by secret channels under the sea from Hispaniola, gushes forth, just as Alpheus left Eridus to reappear in Sicily at the fountain of Arethusa. This fact is established by the finding of leaves of the hobis, mirobolane, and many other trees growing in Hispaniola, which are carried thither by the stream of this fountain, for no such trees are found on the smaller island. This fountain takes its rise in the Yiamiroa River, which flows from the Guaccaiarima district near the Savana country. The isle is not more than one mile in circumference, and is used as a fish market.

Towards the east, our Tethys is protected in a manner by the island of San Juan,[2] which I have elsewhere described. San Juan has rich gold deposits, and its soil is almost as fertile as that of its mother, Hispaniola. Colonists have already been taken there, and are engaged in gold-seeking. On the north-west Tethys is shielded by the great island of Cuba, which for a long time was regarded as a continent because of its length. It is much longer than Hispaniola, and is divided in the middle from east to west by the Tropic of Cancer. Hispaniola and the other islands lying to the south of Cuba occupy almost the whole intervening space between the Tropic of Cancer and the equator. This is the zone which many of the ancients believed to be depopulated because of the fierce heat of the sun: in which opinion they were mistaken. It is claimed that mines, richer than those of Hispaniola, have been found in Cuba and at the present writing it is asserted that gold to the value of one hundred and eighty thousand castellanos has been obtained there and converted into ingots; certainly a positive proof of opulence.

[Note 2: Porto Rico.]

Jamaica lies still farther to the south and is a prosperous, fertile island, of exceptional fecundity, in which, however, there does not exist a single mountain. It is adapted to every kind of cultivation. Its inhabitants are formidable because of their warlike temperament. It is impossible to establish authority within the brief period since its occupation. Columbus, the first discoverer, formerly compared Jamaica to Sicily in point of size, but as a matter of fact it is somewhat smaller, though not much. This is the opinion of those who have carefully explored it. All these people agree as to its inviting character. It is believed that neither gold nor precious stones will be found there; but in the beginning the same opinion was held of Cuba.

The island of Guadaloupe, formerly called by the natives Caraqueira, lies south of Hispaniola, four degrees nearer to the equator. It is thirty-five miles in circumference and its coast line is broken by two gulfs, which almost divide it into two different islands, as is the case with Great Britain and Caledonia, now called Scotland. It has numerous ports. A kind of gum called by the apothecaries animen album, whose fumes cure headaches, is gathered there. The fruit of this tree is one palm long and looks like a carrot. When opened it is found to contain a sweetish flour, and the islanders preserve these fruits just as our peasants lay by a store of chestnuts and other similar things for the winter. The tree itself might be a fig-tree. The edible pineapple and other foods which I have carefully studied above also grow in Guadaloupe, and it is even supposed that it was the inhabitants of this island who originally carried the seeds of all these delicious fruits to the other islands.

In conducting their man-hunts, the Caribs have scoured all the neighbouring countries; and whatever they found that was likely to be useful to them, they brought back for cultivation. These islanders are inhospitable and suspicious, and their conquest can only be accomplished by using force. Both sexes use poisoned arrows and are very good shots; so that, whenever the men leave the island on an expedition, the women defend themselves with masculine courage against any assailants. It is no doubt this fact that has given rise to the exploded belief that there are islands in this ocean peopled entirely by women. The Admiral Columbus induced me to believe this tale and I repeated it in my First Decade.

In the island of Guadaloupe there are mountains and fertile plains; it is watered by beautiful streams. Honey is found in the trees and crevices of the rocks, and, as is the case at Palma, one of the Fortunate Isles, honey is gathered amongst briar and bramble bushes.

The island recently named La Deseada lies eighteen miles distant from the former island, and is twenty miles in circumference.

There is another charming island lying ten miles to the south of Guadaloupe, which is called Galante; its surface is level and it is thirty miles in circumference. Its name was suggested by its beauty, for, in the Spanish, dandies are called galanes.[3]

[Note 3: The island was, in reality, named after one of the ships of Columbus.]

Nine miles to the east of Guadaloupe lie six other islands called Todos Santos and Barbadas. These are only barren reefs, but mariners are obliged to know them. Thirty-five miles north of Guadaloupe looms the island called Montserrat, which is forty miles in circumference, and is dominated by a very lofty mountain. An island called Antigua, thirty miles distant from Guadaloupe, has a circumference of about forty miles.

The Admiral Diego Columbus, son of the discoverer, told me that when obliged to go to court he left his wife in Hispaniola, and that she had written him that an island with rich gold deposits had been discovered in the midst of the archipelago of the Caribs, but that it had not yet been visited. Off the left coast of Hispaniola there lies to the south and near to the port of Beata an island called Alta Vela. Most astonishing things are told concerning sea monsters found there, especially about the turtles, which are, so it is said, larger than a large breast shield. When the breeding time arrives they come out of the sea, and dig a deep hole in the sand, in which they deposit three or four hundred eggs. When all their eggs are laid, they cover up the hole with a quantity of earth sufficient to hide them, and go back to their feeding grounds in the sea, without paying further heed to their progeny. When the day, fixed by nature, for the birth of these animals arrives, a swarm of turtles comes into the world, without the assistance of their progenitors, and only aided by the sun's rays. It looks like an ant-hill. The eggs are almost as large as those of a goose, and the flavour of turtle meat is compared to veal.

There is a large number of other islands, but they are as yet unknown, and moreover it is not required to sift al1 this meal so carefully through the sieve. It is sufficient to know that we have in our control immense countries where, in the course of centuries, our compatriots, our language, our morals, and our religion will flourish. It was not from one day to another that the Teucrians peopled Asia, the Tyrians Libya, or the Greeks and Phoenicians Spain.

I do not mention the islands which protect the north of Hispaniola; they have extensive fisheries and might be cultivated, but the Spaniards avoid them because they are poor. And now adieu, ancient Tethys:

Jam valeant annosa Tethys, nymphaeque madentes, Ipsius comites; veniat coronata superbe Australis pelagi cultrix, re ac nomine dives.[4]

[Note 4: The following English translation for these lines has been suggested:

Farewell, old Tethys, ocean goddess old; Farewell thy company, the Nereid band; And come thou, rich in name and pearls and gold Crowned royally, Queen of the Southern strand.]

In the volume of letters I sent Your Holiness last year, by one of my servants, and which Your Holiness has read in its entirety before the Cardinals of the Apostolic See and your beloved sister, I related that on the same day the Church celebrates the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, the leader of the men who had crossed the lofty mountain chain, had been told that an island remarkable for the size of its pearls lay within sight of the coast and that its king was rich and powerful and often made war against the caciques whose states lay on the coast, especially Chiapes and Tumaco. We have written that the Spaniards did not attack the island because of the great storms which render that South Sea dangerous, during three months of the year. This island has now been conquered and we have tamed its proud cacique. May Your Holiness deign to accept him and all his rich principalities, since he has now received the waters of baptism. It will not be out of place to remember under whose orders and by whom this conquest was effected. May Your Holiness attend with serene brow and benignant ear to the account of this enterprise.



BOOK X

As soon as he landed, the governor, Pedro Arias, confided to a certain Gaspar Morales an expedition to Isla Rica.[1] Morales first passed by the country of Chiapes, called Chiapeios, and of Tumaco, those two caciques along the South Sea who were friends of Vasco. He and his men were received magnificently as friends, and a fleet was equipped for attacking the island. This island is called Rica and not Margarita, although many pearls are found there; for the name Margarita was first bestowed upon another island near Paria and the region called Boca de la Sierpe, where many pearls had likewise been found. Morales landed upon the island with only sixty men, the dimensions of his boats, called culches, not permitting him to take a larger number. The proud and formidable king of the island, whose name I have not learned, advanced to meet them, escorted by a large number of warriors, and proffering menaces. Guazzaciara is their war-cry; when they utter this cry, they let fly their javelins; they do not use bows. Guazzaciara means a battle; so they engaged in four guazzaciaras, in which the Spaniards, aided by their allies of Chiapes and Tumaco, who were that chieftain's enemies, were victorious. Their attack was in the nature of a surprise. The cacique wished to assemble a larger army, but was dissuaded by his neighbours along the coast from continuing the struggle. Some by their example, and others by threatening him with the ruin of a flourishing country, demonstrated that the friendship of the Spaniards would bring glory and profit to himself and his friends. They reminded him of the misfortunes which had the preceding year befallen Poncha, Pochorroso, Quarequa, Chiapes, Tumaco, and others who attempted to resist. The cacique gave up fighting and came to meet the Spaniards, whom he conducted to his palace, which was a veritable royal residence marvellously decorated. Upon their arrival at his house he presented them with a very well-wrought basket filled with pearls of ten pounds weight, at eight ounces to the pound.

[Note 1: The description at this point is inaccurate and misleading. The pearl islands number in all one hundred and eighty-three, forming an archipelago. There are thirty-nine islands of considerable size, of which the principal ones are San Jose, San Miguel, and Isla del Rey; the others are small, some being no more than reefs, or isolated rocks rising above the surface of the sea.]

The cacique was overjoyed when they presented him with their usual trifles, such as glass beads, mirrors, copper bells, and perhaps some iron hatchets, for the natives prize these things more than heaps of gold. In fact, they even make fun of the Spaniards for exchanging such important and useful articles for such a little gold. Hatchets can be put to a thousand uses among them, while gold is merely a not indispensable luxury. Pleased and enchanted by his bargains, the cacique, took the captain and his officers by the hand and led them to the top of one of the towers of his house from whence the view embraced an immense horizon towards the sea. Looking about him, he said: "Behold the infinite ocean which has no end towards the rising sun." He pointed to the east, and afterwards turning to the south and the west he gave them to understand that the continent, on which the vast mountain ranges were perceptible in the distance, was very large. Glancing about nearer to them, he said: "These islands lying to the left and right along the two coasts of our residence belong to us. They are all rich; they are all happy, if you call lands happy which abound in gold and pearls. In this particular place there is not much gold, but the shores of all these islands are strewn with pearls, and I will give you as many as you want if you will be my friends. I prefer your manufactures to my pearls, and I wish to possess them. Therefore do not imagine that I desire to break off relations with you."

Such were the words, amongst many others similar, they exchanged. When the Spaniards planned to leave, the cacique promised to send each year as a present to the great king of Castile a hundred pounds of pearls, at eight ounces to the pound. He made this promise voluntarily, attaching little importance to it, and in no way considering himself their tributary.

There are so many rabbits and deer in that island that, without leaving their houses, the Spaniards could kill as many as they chose with their arrows. Their life there was luxurious, and nothing was wanting. The royal residence lies only six degrees from the equator. Yucca, maize bread, and wine made from grains and fruits, are the same as at Comogra or amongst the other continental and insular tribes.

The cacique, Most Holy Father, was baptised with all his people who are become as sheep under their shepherd to increase your flock. Pedro Arias, the governor, wished to bestow his name upon them. The friendship established increased, and the cacique, to assist the Spaniards to regain the continent more easily, lent them his fishermen's culches, that is to say barques dug out of treetrunks in the native fashion. He also accompanied them to the shore.

After setting aside the fifth for the royal officials, the Spaniards divided amongst themselves the pearls they had secured. They say they are extremely valuable. Here is a proof of the great value of the pearls from that island. Many of them are white and have a beautiful orient, and are as large or even larger than a nut. What has quickened my recollection is the remembrance of a pearl which the Sovereign Pontiff, Paul, predecessor of Your Holiness, bought from a Venetian merchant through the intermediary of my relative Bartolomeo the Milanese, for forty-four thousand ducats. Now amongst the pearls brought from the island there is one equal in size to an ordinary nut. It was sold at auction and bought at Darien for twelve thousand castellanos of gold, ending in the hands of the governor, Pedro Arias. This precious pearl now belongs to his wife, of whom we have already spoken at the time of his departure. We may assume, therefore, that this pearl was the most precious of all, since it was valued so highly amongst that mass of pearls which were bought, not singly, but by the ounce. It is probable that the Venetian merchant had not paid such a price in the East for the pearl of Pope Paul; but he lived at a time when such objects were greedily sought and a lover of pearls was waiting to swallow it.

Let us now say something of the shells in which pearls grow. Your Beatitude is not ignorant of the fact that Aristotle, and Pliny who followed the former in his theories, were not of the same opinion concerning the growth of pearls. They held but one point in common, and upon all others they differed. Neither would admit that pearl oysters moved after they were once formed. They declare that there exist at the bottom of the sea, meadows, as it were, upon which an aromatic plant resembling thyme grows; they affirm they had seen these fields. In such places these animals resembling oysters are born and grow, engendering about them numerous progeny. They are not satisfied to have one, three, four, or even more pearls, for as many as a hundred and twenty pearls have been found in one shell on the fisheries of that island; and the captain, Caspar Morales, and his companions carefully counted them. While the Spaniards were there, the cacique had his divers bring up pearls. The matrix of these pearl oysters may be compared to the organ in which hens form their numerous eggs. The pearls are produced in the following manner: as soon as they are ripe and leave the womb of their mother, they are found detached from the lips of the matrix. They follow one by one each in turn detaching itself, after a brief interval. In the beginning the pearls are enclosed, as it were, in the belly of the oyster, where they grow just as a child while in the womb of its mother lives on the substance of her body. Later on they leave the maternal asylum, where they were hidden. The pearl oysters found—as I myself have seen from time to time—upon the beach and imbedded in the sand on different Atlantic coasts, have been cast up from the depths of the sea by storms, and do not come there of themselves. Why brilliant morning dew gives a white tint to pearls; why bad weather causes them to turn yellow; why they like a clear sky, and remain immovable when it thunders, are questions which cannot be examined with precision by those ignorant natives. It is not a subject that can be treated by limited minds. It is further said that the largest pearl oysters remain at the bottom, the commoner ones in the half-depths, and the little ones near the surface; but the reasons given to sustain this theory are poor ones. The immovable mollusc does not reason about the choice of its home. Everything depends on the determination, the ability, and the breath of the divers. The large pearl oysters do not move about; they are created and find their sustenance in the deepest places, for the number of divers who venture to penetrate to the bottom of the sea to collect them is few. They are afraid of polyps, which are greedy for oyster meat and are always grouped about the places where they are. They are likewise afraid of other sea-monsters, and most of all they fear to suffocate if they stay too long under water. The pearl oysters in the profoundest depths of the sea consequently have time to grow, and the larger and older the shell becomes, the larger the pearls they harbour, though in number they are few. Those born at the bottom of the sea are believed to become food for the fish; when first gathered they are soft, and the shape of the ear is different from the larger ones. It is alleged that no pearl adheres to the shell as it grows old, but there grows in the shell itself a sort of round and brilliant lump which acquires lustre by filing. This, however, is not valuable, and takes its nature rather from the shell than from the pearl. The Spaniards call the tympanum pati.[2] Sometimes pearl oysters have been found growing in small colonies upon rocks, but they are not prized. It is credible that the oysters of India, Arabia, the Red Sea, and Ceylon exist in the manner described by celebrated authors, nor should the explanations given by such eminent writers be entirely rejected; I speak of those who have been for a long time in contradiction with one another.

[Note 2: Pati appellat Hispanus tympanum; a sentence for which the translator has found no satisfactory meaning.]

We have already spoken enough about these sea-animals and their eggs, which luxury-loving people stupidly prefer to the eggs of chickens or ducks. Let us add some further details outside our subject.

We have above described the entrance to the Gulf of Uraba, and said the different countries washed by its waters were strangely different from one another. I have nothing new to relate of the western shore, where the Spaniards established their colony on the banks of the Darien River.

What I have recently learnt about the eastern shore is as follows: the entire country lying to the east between the promontory and shore which extend into the sea and receive the force of the waves, as far as Boca de la Sierpe and Paria, is called by the general name of Caribana. Caribs are found everywhere, and are called from the name of their country,[3] but it is well to indicate from whence the Caribs take their origin, and how, after leaving their country, they have spread everywhere like a deadly contagion. Nine miles from the first coast encountered coming from seawards where, as we have said, Hojeda settled, stands in the province of Caribana a village called Futeraca; three miles farther on is the village of Uraba, which gives its name to the gulf and was formerly the capital of the kingdom. Six miles farther on is the village of Feti, and at the ninth and twelfth miles respectively stand the villages of Zeremoe and Sorachi, all thickly populated. All the natives in these parts indulged in man-hunts, and when there are no enemies to fight they practise their cruelties on one another. From this place the infection has spread to the unfortunate inhabitants of the islands and continent.

[Note 3: There are more theories than one concerning the origin of the Caribs and their name. Among other writers who have treated this subject may be cited Reville, in an article published in the Nouvelle Revue, 1884, and Rochefort in his Histoire naturelle et morale des isles Antilles.]

There is another fact I think I should not omit. A learned lawyer called Corales, who is a judge at Darien, reported that he encountered a fugitive from the interior provinces of the west, who sought refuge with the cacique. This man, seeing the judge reading, started with surprise, and asked through interpreters who knew the cacique's language, "You also have books? You also understand the signs by which you communicate with the absent?" He asked at the same time to look at the open book, hoping to see the same characters used among his people; but he saw the letters were not the same. He said that in his country the towns were walled and the citizens wore clothing and were governed by laws. I have not learned the nature of their religion, but it is known from examining this fugitive, and from his speech, that they are circumcised.[4] What, Most Holy Father, do you think of this? What augury do you, to whose domination time will submit all peoples, draw for the future?

[Note 4: ...recutiti tamen dispraeputiatique, ab exemplo et sermone fugitivi confererunt. The man may have been a Peruvian or of the civilised plateau people of Cundinamarca. Wiener, in his interesting work, Perou et Bolivie, studies the Peruvian system of writing.]

Let us add to these immense considerations some matters of less importance. I think that I should not omit mentioning the voyage of Juan Solis,[5] who sailed from the ocean port of Lepe, near Cadiz, with three ships, the fourth day of the ides of September, 1515, to explore the southern coasts of what was supposed to be a continent. Nor do I wish to omit mention of Juan Ponce,[6] commissioned to conquer the Caribs, anthropophagi who feed on human flesh; or of Juan Ayora de Badajoz, or Francisco Bezerra, and of Valleco, already mentioned by me. Solis was not successful in his mission. He set out to double the cape or promontory of San Augustin and to follow the coast of the supposed continent as far as the equator. We have already indicated that this cape lies in the seventh degree of the antarctic pole. Solis continued six hundred leagues farther on, and observed that the cape San Augustin extended so far beyond the equator to the south that it reached beyond the thirtieth degree of the Southern Hemisphere. He therefore sailed for a long distance beyond the Boca de la Sierpe and Spanish Paria, which face the north and the pole star. In these parts are found some of those abominable anthropophagi, Caribs, whom I have mentioned before. With fox-like astuteness these Caribs feigned amicable signs, but meanwhile prepared their stomachs for a succulent repast; and from their first glimpse of the strangers their mouths watered like tavern trenchermen. The unfortunate Solis landed with as many of his companions as he could crowd into the largest of the barques, and was treacherously set upon by a multitude of natives who killed him and his men with clubs in the presence of the remainder of his crew.[7] Not a soul escaped; and after having killed and cut them in pieces on the shore, the natives prepared to eat them in full view of the Spaniards, who from their ships witnessed this horrible sight. Frightened by these atrocities, the men did not venture to land and execute vengeance for the murder of their leader and companions. They loaded their ships with red wood, which the Italians call verzino and the Spaniards brazil-wood, and which is suitable for dyeing wool; after which they returned home. I have learned these particulars by correspondence, and I here repeat them. I shall further relate what the other explorers accomplished.

[Note 5: Juan Diaz de Solis, a native of Sebixa, sailed with Vincente Yanez Pinzon in 1508, when the mouths of the Amazon were discovered. In 1512, the King appointed him and Giovanni Vespucci his cartographers.]

[Note 6: Governor in 1508 of Porto Rico and later, in 1512, the discoverer of Florida, of which country he was appointed Adelantado by King Ferdinand. He died in Cuba in 1521, from the effects of a wound received during his expedition to Florida in that year.]

[Note 7: The scene of this massacre was between Maldonado and Montevideo.]

Juan Ponce likewise endured a severe check from the cannibals on the island of Guadaloupe, which is the most important of all the Carib islands. When these people beheld the Spanish ships, they concealed themselves in a place from which they could spy upon all the movements of the people who might land. Ponce had sent some women ashore to wash some shirts and linen, and also some foot-soldiers to obtain fresh water, for he had not seen land after leaving the island of Ferro in the Canaries until he reached Guadaloupe, a distance of four thousand two hundred miles. There is no island in the ocean throughout the entire distance. The cannibals suddenly attacked and captured the women, dispersing the men, a small number of whom managed to escape. Ponce did not venture to attack the Caribs, fearing the poisoned arrows which these barbarous man-eaters use with fatal effect.

This excellent Ponce who, as long as he was in a place of safety, had boasted that he would exterminate the Caribs, was constrained to leave his washerwomen and retreat before the islanders. What he has since done, and what discoveries he may have made, I have not yet learned. Thus Solis lost his life, and Ponce his honour, in carrying out their expeditions.

Another who failed miserably in his undertaking the same year is Juan Ayora de Cordova, a nobleman sent out as judge, as we have elsewhere said, and who was keener about accumulating a fortune than he was about administering his office, and deserving praise. Under some pretext or other he robbed several caciques and extorted gold from them, in defiance of all justice. It is related that he treated them so cruelly that, from being friends, they became implacable enemies, and driven to extremities they massacred the Spaniards, sometimes openly and sometimes by setting traps for them. In places where formerly trade relations were normal and the caciques friendly, it became necessary to fight. When, so it is said, he had amassed a large amount of gold by such means, Ayora fled on board a ship he suddenly procured, and it is not known at this present writing where he landed. There are not wanting people who believe that the governor himself, Pedro Arias, closed his eyes to this secret flight; for Juan Ayora is a brother of Gonzales Ayora, the royal historiographer, who is a learned man, an excellent captain, and so intimate with the governor that he and Pedro Arias may be cited amongst the rare pairs of friends known to us. I am in very close relations with both of them, and may they both pardon me; but amidst all the troubles in the colonies, nothing has displeased me so much as the cupidity of this Juan Ayora, which troubled the public peace of the colonies and alienated the caciques.