On Being Asked Whether They
Possessed Any Gold, Or Pearls, Or Spice, They Made Answer By Signs That
There Was
Great plenty towards the east, in a country which they named
Bohio, which was afterwards supposed to be the island
Of Hispaniola, but
it has never been certainly ascertained what place they meant to indicate.
After receiving this account, the admiral resolved to remain no longer in
the Rio de Mares, and ordered some of the natives of Cuba to be seized, as
he intended to carry some from all parts of his discoveries into Spain.
Accordingly twelve were seized, men women and children; and this was done
with so little disturbance, and occasioned so little terror, that when the
ships were about to sail, the husband of one of the women and father of
two children, who had been carried on board, came off in a canoe,
requesting to go along with his wife and children. This circumstance gave
great satisfaction to the admiral, who ordered him to be taken on board,
and they were all treated with great kindness.
On the 13th of November the squadron weighed from the Rio de Mares and
stood to the eastwards, intending to proceed in search of the island
called Bohio by the Indians; but the wind blowing hard from the north,
they were constrained to come to an anchor among some high islands on the
coast of Cuba, near a large port which the admiral named Puerta del
Principe, or the Princes Port, and he called the sea among these islands
the Sea of our Lady. These islands lay so thick and close together, that
most of them were only a musket-shot asunder, and the farthest not more
than the quarter of a league. The channels between these islands were so
deep, and the shores so beautifully adorned with trees and plants of
infinite varieties, that it was quite delightful to sail among them. Among
the multitude of other trees, there were great numbers of mastic, aloes,
and palms, with long smooth green trunks, and other plants innumerable.
Though these islands were not inhabited, there were seen the remains of
many fires which had been made by the fishermen; for it appeared
afterwards, that the people of Cuba were in use to go over in great
numbers in their canoes to these islands, and to a great number of other
uninhabited islets in these seas, to live upon fish, which they catch in
great abundance, and upon birds, crabs, and other things which they find
on the land. The Indians are by no means nice in their choice of food, but
eat many things which are abhorred by us Europeans, such as large spiders,
the worms that breed in rotten wood and other corrupt places, and devour
their fish almost raw; for before roasting a fish, they scoop out the eyes
and eat them. The Indians follow this employment of fishing and
bird-catching according to the seasons, sometimes in one island, sometimes
in another, as a person changes his diet when weary of living on one kind
of food.
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