When ordered to tender obedience to the King of Castile and to embrace our religion, or get out, the Indians replied with flights of poisoned arrows. The Spaniards captured some of them, whom they immediately set at liberty after giving them some clothing. Some others they took on board the ships and displayed our grandeur before them, so that they might tell their compatriots; after which they released them, hoping thus to win their friendship. Gold has been proven to exist in all the rivers. Here and there in the native houses fresh meat of deer and wild boar was found; a food which they eat with great pleasure. These natives also keep numbers of birds which they rear either for food or for their pleasure. The climate is healthy; I may cite as a proof the fact that the Spaniards slept at night on the river banks and in the open air, without anybody suffering from headache or pains.
The Spaniards likewise found huge balls of spun cotton and bunches of divers coloured feathers from which headdresses, similar to those of our cuirassiers, or mantles of state are made. These are elegancies among the natives. There was also a large number of bows and arrows.
Sometimes the bodies of their ancestors are burned and the bones buried, and sometimes they are preserved entire in their boios, that is to say houses, and treated with great respect; or again, they may be ornamented with gold and precious stones. It was noted that the breast ornaments, which they call guanines were made of copper rather than gold, and it was surmised that they dealt with tricky strangers who sold them these guanines, palming off upon them vile metal for gold. Neither did the Spaniards discover the trick till they melted these supposed valuables.
Some architects who had wandered a short distance from the coast came upon some fragments of white marble, and they think that strangers must at some time have landed there and quarried this marble from the mountains, leaving these fragments scattered about the plain. It was at this place that the Spaniards learned that the river Maragnon flows from the snow-covered mountains, its volume being increased by numerous streams flowing into it. Its great size is due to the fact that its course is long, and that it only reaches the sea after having traversed well-watered regions.
The signal for departure was finally given. Nine hundred men who had been landed, assembled shouting joyfully, marching in order, loaded with plunder, and quite showy with crowns, mantles, feathers, and native military ornaments. The anchor was hoisted on the sixteenth day of the calends of July. The ships, damaged in frequent gales, had been repaired, the flag-ship having especially suffered the loss of her rudder, as we have already mentioned. The fleet put out to sea in the direction of Carthagena, and in obedience to the King's instructions ravaged some islands inhabited by ferocious cannibals which lay in the course. The strong currents deceived Juan Serrano, chief pilot of the flag-ship, and his colleagues, though they boasted that they were well acquainted with the nature of these currents. In one night, and contrary to the general expectation, they made forty leagues.
BOOK [VI]
The time has come, Most Holy Father, to philosophise a little, leaving cosmography to seek the causes of Nature's secrets. The ocean currents in those regions run towards the west, as torrents rushing down a mountain side. Upon this point the testimony is unanimous. Thus I find myself uncertain when asked where these waters go which flow in a circular and continuous movement from east to west, never to return to their starting-place; and how it happens that the west is not consequently overwhelmed by these waters, nor the east emptied. If it be true that these waters are drawn towards the centre of the earth, as is the case with all heavy objects, and that this centre, as some people affirm, is at the equinoctial line, what can be the central reservoir capable of holding such a mass of waters? And what will be the circumference filled with water, which will yet be discovered? The explorers of these coasts offer no convincing explanation. There are other authors who think that a large strait exists at the extremity of the gulf formed by this vast continent and which, we have already said, is eight times larger than the ocean. This strait may lie to the west of Cuba, and would conduct these raging waters to the west, from whence they would again return to our east. Some learned men think the gulf formed by this vast continent is an enclosed sea, whose coasts bend in a northerly direction behind Cuba, in such wise that the continent would extend unbrokenly to the northern lands beneath the polar circle bathed by the glacial sea. The waters, driven back by the extent of land, are drawn into a circle, as may be seen in rivers whose opposite banks provoke whirlpools; but this theory does not accord with the facts. The explorers of the northern passages, who always sailed westwards, affirm that the waters are always drawn in that direction, not however with violence, but by a long and uninterrupted movement.
Amongst the explorers of the glacial region a certain Sebastiano Cabotto, of Venetian origin, but brought by his parents in his infancy to England, is cited. It commonly happens that Venetians visit every part of the universe, for purposes of commerce. Cabotto equipped two vessels in England, at his own cost, and first sailed with three hundred men towards the north, to such a distance that he found numerous masses of floating ice in the middle of the month of July. Daylight lasted nearly twenty-four hours, and as the ice had melted, the land was free. According to his story he was obliged to tack and take the direction of west-by-south. The coast bent to about the degree of the strait of Gibraltar. Cabotto did not sail westward until he had arrived abreast of Cuba, which lay on his left. In following this coast-line which he called Bacallaos,[1] he says that he recognised the same maritime currents flowing to the west that the Castilians noted when they sailed in southern regions belonging to them. It is not merely probable, therefore, but becomes even necessary to conclude that between these two hitherto unknown continents there extend large openings through which the water flows from east to west. I think these waters flow all round the world in a circle, obediently to the Divine Law, and that they are not spewed forth and afterwards absorbed by some panting Demogorgon. This theory would, up to a certain point, furnish an explanation of the ebb and flow.
[Note 1: The word Bacallaos is thought to be of Basque origin. This designation for codfish is extremely ancient, and the land thus named appears on the earliest maps of America.]
Cabotto calls these lands Terra de Bacallaos, because the neighbouring waters swarm with fish similar to tunnies, which the natives call by this name. These fish are so numerous that sometimes they interfere with the progress of ships. The natives of these regions wear furs, and appear to be intelligent. Cabotto reports that there are many bears in the country, which live on fish. These animals plunge into the midst of thick schools of fish, and seizing one fast in their claws they drag it ashore to be devoured. They are not dangerous to men. He claims to have seen the natives in many places in possession of copper. Cabotto frequents my house, and I have him sometimes at my table.[2] He was called from England by our Catholic King after the death of Henry, King of that country, and he lives at court with us. He is waiting, from day to day, to be furnished with ships with which he will be able to discover this mystery of nature. I think he will leave on this expedition towards the month of March of next year, 1516. If God gives me life, Your Holiness shall hear from me what happens to him. There are not wanting people in Spain who affirm that Cabotto is not the first discoverer of Terra de Bacallaos; they only concede him the merit of having pushed out a little farther to the west.[3] But this is enough about the strait and Cabotto.