Truly this man had a good Christian purpose and was very contented with his own estate and desired in a moderate degree to maintain himself in it, and to rest from such sore travail, which he fully merited; yet the result of his sweat and toil was to impose a greater burden on the Sovereigns, and I do not know what greater was necessary than had already fallen to them, and even he had imposed obligations on them, except that he kept seeing that little importance was made of his distinguished services that he had performed, and that all at once the estimation of these Indies which was held at first was declining and coming to naught, through those that had the ears of the Sovereigns, so that he feared each day greater disfavors and that the Sovereigns might give up the whole business and thus his sweat and travail be entirely lost.
Having determined, then, to come as quickly as he could to this island, Wednesday, August 15, which was the day of the Assumption of Our Lady, after the rising of the sun, he ordered the anchors weighed from where he was anchored, which must have been within the small gulf which Margarita and the other islands make with the mainland (and he must have been near Margarita as we said above, ch. 139), and sailed on the way to this island; and, pursuing his way, he saw very clearly Margarita and the little islands which were there, and also, the farther away he went, he discovered more high land of the continent. And he went that day from sunrise to sunset 63 leagues, because of the great currents which supplemented the wind....[362-1]
Let us return to the voyage of the Admiral, whom we left started from the neighborhood of the island of Margarita, and he went that day, Wednesday, 63 leagues from sun to sun, as they say. The next day, Thursday, August 16, he navigated to the north-west, quarter of the north,[363-1] 26 leagues, with the sea calm, “thanks be to God,” as he always said. He tells here a wonderful thing, that when he left the Canaries for this Española, having gone 300 leagues to the west, then the needles declined to the north-west363-2 one quarter, and the North Star did not rise but 5 degrees, and now in this voyage it has not declined to the north-west[363-2] until last night, when it declined more than a quarter and a half, and some needles declined a half wind which are two quarters;[363-3] and this happened suddenly last night. And he says each night he was marvelling at such a change in the heavens, and of the temperature there, so near the equinoctial line, which he experienced in all this voyage, after having found land; especially the sun being in Leo, where, as has been told, in the mornings a loose gown was worn, and where the people of that place—Gracia—were actually whiter than the people who have been seen in the Indies. He also found in the place where he now came, that the North Star was in 14 degrees when the Guardians[363-4] had passed from the head after two hours and a half. Here he again exhorted the Sovereigns to esteem this affair highly, since he had shown them that there was in this land gold, and he had seen in it minerals without number, which will have to be extracted with intelligence, industry and labor, since even the iron, as much as there is, cannot be taken out without these sacrifices; and he has taken them a nugget of 20 ounces and many others, and where this is, it must be believed there is plenty, and he took their Highnesses a lump of copper originally of six arrobas,[364-1] lapis-lazuli, gum-lac, amber, cotton, pepper, cinnamon, a great quantity of Brazil-wood, aromatic gum,[364-2] white and yellow sandalwood, flax, aloes, ginger, incense, myrobolans of all kinds, very fine pearls and pearls of a reddish color, which Marco Polo says are worth more than the white ones,[364-3] and that may well be so in some parts just as it is the case with the shells that are gathered in Canaria and are sold for so great a price in the Mine of Portugal. “There are infinite kinds of spices which have been seen of which I do not care to speak for fear of prolixity.” All these are his words.
As to what he says of cinnamon, and aloes and ginger, incense, myrobolans, sandal woods, I never saw them in this island, at least I did not recognize them; what he says of flax must mean cabuya[364-4] which are leaves like the cavila from which thread is made and cloth or linen can be made from it, but it is more like hemp cloth than linen. There are two sorts of it, cabuya and nequen; cabuya is coarse and rough and nequen is soft and delicate. Both are words of this island Española. Storax gum I never smelled except in the island of Cuba, but I did not see it, and this is certain that in Cuba there must be trees of it, or of a gum that smells like it, because we never smelled it except in the fires that the Indians make of wood that they burn in their houses. It is a most perfect perfume, certainly. I never knew of incense being found in these islands.
Returning to the journey, Friday, August 17, he went 37 leagues, the sea being smooth, “to God our Lord,” he says, “may infinite thanks be given.” He says that not finding islands now, assures him that that land from whence he came is a vast mainland, or where the Earthly Paradise is, “because all say that it is at the end of the east, and this is the Earthly Paradise,”[365-1] says he.
Saturday, between day and night, he went 39 leagues.
Sunday, August 19, he went in the day and the night 33 leagues, and reached land; and this was a very small island which he called Madama Beata, and which is now commonly so called. This is a small island of a matter of a league and a half close by this island of Española, and distant from this port of Sancto Domingo about 50 leagues and distant 15 leagues from the port of Yaquino, which is more to the west. There is next to it another smaller one which has a small but somewhat high mountain, which from a distance looks like a sail, and he named it Alto Velo.[365-2] He believed that the Beata was a small island which he called Sancta Catherina when he came by this southern coast, from the discovery of the island of Cuba, and distant from this port of Sancto Domingo 25 leagues, and is next to this island. It weighed upon him to have fallen off in his course so much, and he says it should not be counted strange, since during the nights he was from caution beating about to windward, for fear of running against some islands or shoals; there was therefore reason for this error, and thus in not following a straight course, the currents, which are very strong here, and which flow down towards the mainland and the west, must have carried the ships, without realizing it, so low. They run so violently there toward La Beata that it has happened that a ship has been eight months in those waters without being able to reach this port and that much of delay in coming from there here, has happened many times.
Therefore he anchored now between the Beata and this island, between which there are two leagues of sea, Monday, August 20. He then sent the boats to land to call Indians, as there were villages there, in order to write of his arrival to the Adelantado; having come at midday, he despatched them. Twice there came to the ship six Indians, and one of them carried a crossbow with its cord, and nut and rack,[366-1] which caused him no small surprise, and he said, “May it please God that no one is dead.” And because from Sancto Domingo the three ships must have been seen to pass downward, and concluding that it certainly was the Admiral as he was expecting him each day, the Adelantado started then in a caravel and overtook the Admiral here. They both were very much pleased to see each other. The Admiral having asked him about the condition of the country, the Adelantado recounted to him how Francisco Roldan had arisen with 80 men, with all the rest of the occurrences which had passed in this island, since he left it. What he felt on hearing such news, there is small need to recite.
He left there, Wednesday, August 22, and finally with some difficulty because of the many currents and the north-east breezes which are continuous and contrary there he arrived at this port of Sancto Domingo, Friday, the last day of August of the said year 1498, having set out from Isabela for Castile, Thursday the tenth day of March, 1496, so that he delayed in returning to this island two years and a half less nine days.
[319-1] I.e., the first Admiral of the Ocean and the Indies where Las Casas was when he was writing.