In This Island The Spaniards Took The First Of
Those Parrots Which Are Called Guacamayas, Which Are As Large As
Dunghill Cocks.
Some men went on shore again on Tuesday the 5th of
November, who took two youths, who made them understand that they belonged
to the island of Borriquen, since named St Juan de Porto Rico, and
that the inhabitants of Guadaloupe were Caribbees, and kept them to eat,
being canibals.
The boats returned for some Spaniards who had remained on
shore, and found with them six women who had fled from the Caribbees; but
the admiral gave them some hawks-bells and set them on shore. The
Caribbees took all from them; and when the boats went again on shore,
these women, with a youth and two boys, solicited to be taken on board the
ships. From these people it was learnt that there was a continent not far
distant, and many islands to which they gave names. On being asked for the
island of Ayti, which is the Indian name of Hispaniola, they pointed in
the direction where it lay.
The admiral proposed to continue the voyage, but was told that the
inspector James Marque had gone on shore with eight soldiers, at which
conduct he was much offended. Parties of men were sent out in different
directions, but could not find him, on account of the thickness of the
woods. Other parties were again sent on shore, who fired muskets and
sounded trumpets, yet all to no purpose, and Columbus was inclined to
leave Marque to his fate, being much concerned at the delay. Yet lest
these men might perish, he ordered the ships to take in wood and water,
and sent Alonso de Ojeda, who commanded one of the caravels, with forty
men, to view the country, and to search for Marque and his party. Ojeda
returned without any tidings of the stragglers, and reported that in
travelling six leagues he had waded through twenty-six rivers, many of
which took his men to the middle. In this excursion much cotton was seen,
and a vast variety of birds in the woods. At length, on Friday the 8th
November, the inspector and his men returned, excusing himself that he had
lost his way in the prodigiously thick woods, and was unable to get back
sooner: But the admiral ordered him to be put under arrest for going on
shore without leave. In some of the houses at this island, cotton was
found both raw and spun, and likewise a strange sort of looms in which it
was wove by the natives. The houses were well constructed, and better
stored with provisions than those in the islands which were discovered in
the first voyage: But they found abundance of human heads, hung up in the
houses, and many baskets full of human bones, from which it was concluded
that the natives were canibals, or fed on human flesh.
On the 10th November he coasted along the island of Guadaloupe, towards
the north-west, steering for Hispaniola, and discovered a very high island,
which he called Montserrate, because it resembled the rocks of that
place. He next found a very round island, everywhere perpendicular, so
that it seemed impossible to get upon it without the assistance of ladders,
and which he named Santa Maria la Redonda, or the round island of St
Mary. To another island he gave the name of Santa Maria et Antigua or
ancient St Mary, the coast of which extended fifteen or twenty leagues.
Many other islands were seen to the northward, which were very high, and
covered with woods. He anchored at one of these which he named St Martin;
and at another on the 14th November, which he named Santa Cruz, or the
Holy Cross. They took four women and two children at this island; and as
the boat was returning from the shore, a canoe was met in which there were
four men and a woman, who stood on their guard. The woman shot arrows as
well as the men, and one of her arrows pierced through a buckler. In
boarding, the canoe was overset, and one of the Indians discharged his bow
very vigorously while swimming. Holding on their course, so many islands
were seen close together that they could not be numbered, or separately
named. The admiral called the largest of these the island of St Ursula,
and the rest the Eleven thousand Virgins. He came afterwards to another
large island, called Borriquen by the natives, but which he named the
island of St John the Baptist. It is now called San Juan de Puerto
Rico. In a bay on the west coast of this island, the seamen took several
kinds of fish in great plenty, such as skate, olaves, pilchards, and some
others. On this island many good houses were seen, all of timber and
thatched, each having a square inclosure and a clean well beaten path to
the shore. The walls of these houses were made of canes woven or wattled
together, and they were curiously ornamented with creeping plants or
greens, as is usual at Valencia in Spain. Near the sea there was a sort of
balcony or open gallery of the same kind of structure, capable to hold
twelve persons: But no person was to be seen about the place, all the
inhabitants having fled into the interior. On Friday the 22d of November,
the first land of Hispaniola was seen on the north side, to which they
went straight over from the extreme point of Porto Rico, the two islands
being fifteen leagues distant. At this place, which was in the province or
district of Samona, the admiral put one of the Indians on shore who had
been in Spain, desiring him to tell the natives all the wonderful things
he had seen, to induce them to enter into friendship with the Christians.
He readily undertook this commission, but was never more heard of, so that
he was believed to have died.
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