that
some trees had a resemblance to others which there are in Castile, but
there was a very great difference. And other trees of other sorts
were such that there is no one who could * * * liken them to others of
Castile. * * *

"The others who went for water told me how they had been in their
houses, and that they were very well swept and clean, and their beds
and furniture (made) of things which are like nets of cotton.(*) Their
houses are all like pavilions, and very high and good chimneys.(**)

(*) They are called Hamacas.

(**) Las Casas says they were not meant for smoke but as a
crown, for they have no opening below for the smoke.

"But I did not see, among many towns which I saw, any of more than
twelve or fifteen houses. * * * And there they had dogs. * * * And there
they found one man who had on his nose a piece of gold which was like
half a castellano, on which there were cut letters.(*) I blamed them for
not bargaining for it, and giving as much as was asked, to see what it
was, and whose coin it was; and they answered me that they did not dare
to barter it."

(*) A castellano was a piece of gold, money, weighing about
one-sixth of an ounce.

He continued towards the northwest, then turned his course to the
east-southeast, east and southeast. The weather being thick and heavy,
and "threatening immediate rain. So all these days since I have been in
these Indies it has rained little or much."

Friday, October 19. Columbus, who had not landed the day before, now
sent two caravels, one to the east and southeast and the other to the
south-southeast, while he himself, with the Santa Maria, the SHIP, as he
calls it, went to the southeast. He ordered the caravels to keep their
courses till noon, and then join him. This they did, at an island to the
east, which he named Isabella, the Indians whom he had with him calling
it Saomete. It has been supposed to be the island now called Inagua
Grande.

"All this coast," says the Admiral, "and the part of the island which I
saw, is all nearly flat, and the island the most beautiful thing I
ever saw, for if the others are very beautiful this one is more so." He
anchored at a cape which was so beautiful that he named it Cabo Fermoso,
the Beautiful Cape, "so green and so beautiful," he says, "like all the
other things and lands of these islands, that I do not know where to go
first, nor can I weary my eyes with seeing such beautiful verdure an