ETTING sail from the gulf of Buentiempo, the squadron once more steered for the island of Cuba, and on the 18th of May arrived at a great cape, to which Columbus gave the name of Cabo de la Cruz, which it still retains. Here, landing at a large village, he was well received and entertained by the cacique and his subjects, who had long since heard of him and his ships. In fact, Columbus found, from the report of this chieftain, that the numerous Indians who had visited his ships during the cruise along the northern coast in his first voyage, had spread the story far and near of these wonderful visitors who had descended from the sky, and had filled the whole island with rumors and astonishment.1 The admiral endeavored to ascertain from this cacique and his people, whether Cuba was an island or a continent. They all replied that it was an island, but of infinite extent; for they declared that no one had ever seen 1 Cura de los Palacios, cap. 126.

the end of it. This reply, while it manifested their ignorance of the nature of a continent, left the question still in doubt and obscurity. The Indian name of this province of Cuba was Macaca.

1

Resuming his course to the west on the following day, Columbus came to where the coast suddenly swept away to the north-east for many leagues, and then curved around again to the west, forming an immense bay, or rather gulf. Here he was assailed by a violent storm, accompanied by awful thunder and lightning, which in these latitudes seem to rend the very heavens. Fortunately the storm was not of long duration, or his situation would have been perilous in the extreme; for he found the navigation rendered difficult by numerous keys and sand-banks. These increased as he advanced, until the mariner stationed at the mast-head, beheld the sea, as far as the eye could reach, completely studded with small islands; some were low, naked, and sandy, others covered with verdure, and others tufted with lofty and beautiful forests. They were of various sizes, from one to four leagues, and were generally the more fertile and elevated, the nearer they were to Cuba. Finding them to increase in number, so as to render it impossible to give names to each, the admiral gave the whole labyrinth of islands, which in a manner enamelled the face of the ocean with variegated verdure, the name of the Queen's Gardens. He thought at first of leaving this archipelago on his

1 Keys, from Cayos, rocks which occasionally form small islands on the coast of America.

right, and standing farther out to sea; but he called to mind that Sir John Mandeville and Marco Polo had mentioned that the coast of Asia was fringed with islands to the amount of several thousand. He persuaded himself that he was among that cluster, and resolved not to lose sight of the mainland, by following which, if it were really Asia, he must soon arrive at the dominions of the Grand Khan.

Entering among these islands, therefore, Columbus soon became entangled in the most perpiexed navigation, in which he was exposed to continual perils and difficulties from sand-banks, counter currents, and sunken rocks. The ships were compelled, in a manner, to grope their way, with men stationed at the mast-head, and the lead continually going. Sometimes they were obliged to shift their course, within the hour, to all points of the compass; sometimes they were straitened in a narrow channel, where it was necessary to lower all sail, and tow the vessels out, lest they should run aground; notwithstanding all which precautions, they frequently touched upon sand-banks, and were extricated with great difficulty. The variableness of the weather added to the embarrassment of the navigation; though after a little while it began to assume some method in its very caprices. In the morning the wind rose in the east with the sun, and following his course through the day, died away at sunset in the west. Heavy clouds gathered with the approach of evening, sending forth sheets of lightning, and distant peals of thunder, and men

acing a furious tempest; but as the moon rose, the whole mass broke away, part melting in a shower, and part dispersing by a breeze which sprang up from the land.

There was much in the character of the surrounding scenery to favor the idea of Columbus, that he was in the Asiatic archipelago. As the ships glided along the smooth and glassy canals which separated these verdant islands, the magnificence of their vegetation, the soft odors wafted from flowers, and blossoms, and aromatic shrubs, and the splendid plumage of the scarlet cranes, or rather flamingoes, which abounded in the meadows, and of other tropical birds which fluttered among the groves, resembled what is described of Oriental climes.

These islands were generally uninhabited. They found a considerable village, however, one f the largest, where they landed on the 22d of May. The houses were abandoned by their inhabitants, who appeared to depend principally on the sea for their subsistence. Large quantities of fish were found in their dwellings, and the adjacent shore was covered with the shells of tortoises. There were also domesticated parrots, and scarlet cranes, and a number of dumb dogs, which it was afterwards found they fattened as an article of food. To this island the admiral gave the name of Santa Marta.

In the course of his voyage among these islands, Columbus beheld one day a number of the natives in a canoe on the still surface of one of the channels, occupied in fishing, and was struck

with the singular means they employed They had a small fish, the flat head of which was furnished with numerous suckers, by which it attached itself so firmly to any object, as to be torr in pieces rather than abandon its hold. Tying a line of great length to the tail of this fish, the Indians permitted it to swim at large; it generally kept near the surface of the water, until it perceived its prey, when, darting down swiftly it attached itself by the suckers to the throat of a fish or to the under shell of a tortoise, nor did it relinquish its prey, until both were drawn up by the fishermen and taken out of the water. In this way the Spaniards witnessed the taking of a tortoise of immense size, and Fernando Columbus affirms that he himself saw a shark caught in the same manner on the coast of Veragua. The fact has been corroborated by the accounts of various navigators; and the same mode of fishing is said to be employed on the eastern coast of Africa, at Mozambique and at Madagascar.. Thus," it has been observed, " savage people, who probably have never held communication with each other, offer the most striking analogies in their modes of exercising empire over animals." 1 These fishermen came on board of the ships in a fearless manner. They furnished the Spaniards with a supply of fish, and would cheerfully have given them everything they possessed. To the admiral's inquiries concerning those parts, they said that the sea was full of islands, to the south

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1 Humboldt, Essai Politique sur l'Ile de Cuba, tom. i. p 364.