Mercury--or
rather of herald Mercury's herald--not assuming to be god himself, but
cherishing the divine efflux and the importance it rayed upon him!

The three Indians quivered with a sense of the great adventure! Their
town was yonder. They themselves had been on the path to such and such a
place, but now would they turn and go with us, and when we went again
to the sea they, if it were permitted, would accompany us and view for
themselves our amazing canoes! All this to our companion. They backed
with great deference from us.

We went with these Indians to their town, evidently the town which we
sought. And indeed it was larger, fitter, a more ordered community than
any we had met this side Ocean-Sea, though far, far from travelers'
tales of Orient cities! It was set under trees, palm trees and others,
by the side of a clear river. The huts were larger than those by the
sea, and set not at random but in rows with a great trodden square
in the middle. From town to river where they fished and where, under
overhanging palms, we found many Canoes, ran a way wider than a path,
much like a narrow road. But there were no wheeled vehicles nor draught
animals. We were to find that in all these lands they on occasion
carried their caciques or the sick or hurt in litters or palanquins
borne on men's shoulders. But for carrying, grinding, drawing, they knew
naught of the wheel. It seemed strange that any part of Asia should not
know!

In this town we found the cacique, and with him a _butio_ or priest.
Once, too, I thought, our king and church were undeveloped like these.
We were looking in these lands upon the bud which elsewhere we knew in
the flower. That to Juan Lepe seemed the difference between them and us.

The people swarmed out upon us. When the first admiration was somewhat
over, when Diego Colon and the two seaside men and the Cubans of the
burning sticks had made explanation, we were swept with them into their
public square and to a hut much larger than common where we found a
stately Indian, the cacique, and an ancient wrinkled man, the _butio_.
These met us with their own assumption of something like godship. They
had no lack of manner, and Luis and I had the Castilian to draw
upon. Then came presents and Diego Colon interpreting. But as for the
Admiral's letter, though I showed it, it was not understood.

It was gazed upon and touched, considered a heavenly rarity like the
hawk bells we gave them, but not rea