This Port Is Large, Deep, Safe, And Encompassed With Many Tall Trees; But The Country Is More Rocky And The Trees Less Than In Cuba, And More Like Those In Castile:

Among the trees were many small oaks, with myrtles and other shrubs, and a pleasant river ran along a plain towards the port, all round which were seen large canoes as big as those they had found in Puerto Santo.

Not being able to meet with any of the inhabitants, the admiral quitted St Nicholas and stretched along the coast to the northwards, till he came to another port which he named the Conception, which lies almost due south from a small island about the size of the Gran Canaria, and which was afterwards named Tortuga. Perceiving that this island, which they believed to be Bohio, was very large, that the land and trees resembled Spain, and that in fishing they caught several fishes much like those in Spain, as soles, salmon, pilchards, crabs and the like, on Sunday the ninth of December the admiral gave it the name of Espannola, or little Spain, or as it is called in English Hispaniola.

Being desirous of making inquiry into the nature of this country and its inhabitants, three of the Spaniards travelled up the mountain and fell in with a considerable number of Indians, who were all naked like those they had seen at the other islands; these immediately ran off into the thickest parts of the wood on seeing the Spaniards draw near, and they could only overtake one young woman, who had a plate of gold hanging from her nose. She was carried to the admiral, who gave her some baubles, as bells and glass beads, and then sent her on shore without any injury being offered to her; and three of the Indians who had been brought from the other islands, with three Spaniards, were ordered to accompany her to her dwelling-place.

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