The Spaniards
Would Not Accept The Invitation, But Returned To The Ships With The News
That The Country Was Very Pleasant And Abounded In Provisions; That The
People Were Whiter And Handsomer Than Any They Had Seen In The Other
Islands, And Were Very Courteous And Tractable.
To the constant question
respecting gold, they answered, like all the rest, that the country where
it was found lay farther to the eastwards.
On receiving this intelligence, although the wind was adverse, the admiral
set sail immediately; and on the following Sunday the sixteenth of
December, while plying between Tortuga and Hispaniola, he found one man
alone in a small canoe, which they all wondered was not swallowed up by
the waves, as the wind and sea were then very tempestuous. This man was
taken into the ship and carried to Hispaniola, where he was set on shore
with several gifts. He told the Indians how kindly he had been treated,
and spoke so well of the Spaniards that numbers of the natives came
presently on board; but they brought nothing of value, except some small
grains of gold hanging from their ears and noses, and being asked whence
they procured the gold, they made signs that there was a great deal to be
had higher up the country.
Next day, while the cacique or lord of that part of Hispaniola was on the
beach bartering a plate of gold, there came a large canoe with forty men
on board from the island of Tortuga to near the place where the admiral
lay at anchor. When the cacique and his people saw the canoe approach,
they all sat down on the ground, as a sign that they were unwilling to
fight. Almost all the people from the canoe immediately landed; on which
the Hispaniola chief started up alone, and with threatening words and
gestures made them return to their canoe. He then threw water after them,
and cast stones into the sea towards the canoe; and when they had all most
submissively returned into their canoe, he delivered a stone to one of the
Spanish officers, making signs to him to throw it at those in the canoe,
as if to express that he took part with the Spaniards against the Indians
of Tortuga; but the officer, seeing that they retired quietly, did not
throw the stone[5]. While afterwards discoursing the friendly cacique
affirmed that it contained more gold than all Hispaniola; but that in
Bohio, which was fifteen days journey from the place they were then in,
there was more than in any other land.
On Tuesday the eighteenth of December, the cacique who came the day before
to where the canoe of Tortuga was, and who lived about five leagues from
where the ships lay, came in the morning to a town near the sea, where
some Spaniards then were by order of the admiral to see if the natives
brought any more gold. These men came off to the admiral to acquaint him
of the arrival of the king, who was accompanied by above 200 men, and who
though very young, was carried by four men in a kind of palanquin.
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