Thence They
Proceeded Farther On Without Acknowledging That The Admiral Had Been In
Those Parts, That The Discovery Might Be
Attributed to them, and that it
might be believed they had found out extensive countries; although Peter
de Ledesma, one
Of their pilots who had been with the admiral in his
voyage to Veragua, told them that he knew the country, having been there
with the admiral, and from whom I afterwards learnt these circumstances.
But, independent of this authority, the nature of the charts plainly
demonstrates that they have laid the same thing down twice, as the island
is of the same shape and at the same distance; they having brought a true
draught of the country, only saying that it lay beyond that which the
admiral had before discovered. Hence the same country is twice delineated
on the same chart, as time will make apparent when it shall please God
that this coast shall be better known; for they will then find but one
country of that sort. But to return to our voyage; the admiral ordered his
brother Bartholomew to land with two boats on the island of Guanaia, where
he found people like those of the other islands, except that their
foreheads were not so high. They also saw abundance of pine trees, and
found pieces of lapis calaminaris, such as is used for mixing with copper
in the process for making brass; and which some of the seamen mistaking
for gold concealed for a long time.
While the admirals brother was on shore, using his endeavours to learn the
nature of the country, it so happened that a canoe eight feet wide and as
long as a galley, made all of one piece, and shaped like those which were
common among the islands, put in there. It was loaded with commodities
brought from the westwards, and bound towards New Spain[7]. In the middle
of this canoe there was an awning made of palm-tree leaves, not unlike
those of the Venetian gondolas, which kept all underneath so close, that
neither rain nor sea water could penetrate to wet the goods. Under this
awning were the women and children, and all the commodities; and though
there were twenty-five men in the canoe, they had not the courage to
defend themselves against the people in our boats who pursued them. The
canoe being thus taken without any opposition, was brought along side of
the admiral, who blessed GOD for having given him samples of the
commodities of that country, without exposing his men to any danger. He
therefore ordered such things to be taken as he judged most sightly and
valuable; such as quilts, cotton shirts without sleeves, curiously wrought
and dyed of several colours; some small cloths for covering the nudities,
large sheets, in which the women in the canoe wrapped themselves, as the
Moorish women in Granada used to do, long wooden swords, having a channel
on each side where the edge should be, in which many pieces of sharp-edged
flints were fixed by means of thread and a tenacious bituminous matter;
these swords could cut naked men as well as if they had been made of steel;
hatchets for cutting wood made of good copper, and resembling the stone
hatchets usual among the other islanders, also bells and plates of the
same metal, and crucibles for melting it.
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