r hundred men
and more, an army with banners. We wished to impress, and we took any
and all things that might help in that wise. Drum and trumpet beat
and sang. Father Buil was not with us. But three of his missionaries
accompanied us, and they carried a great crucifix. There were twenty
horses, and terrible were these to this land as the elephants of the
Persians to the Greeks. And much we marveled that Cuba and Hayti had no
memory nor idea of elephants. A throng of Indians would go with us, and
in much they carried our supplies. It was first seen clearly at this
time, I think, the uses that might be drawn from our heathen subjects.
Alonso de Ojeda, Juan Ponce de Leon and Pedro Margarite rode with the
Admiral. Others followed on black and bay and white horses. Juan Lepe
marched with the footmen. He was glad to find Luis Torres.

Before setting out we went to mass in the new church. Candles burned,
incense rose in clouds, the friars chanted, the bell rang, we took the
wafer, the priest lifted the chalice.

The sun rose, the trumpets rang, we were gone. South, before us, the
mountain line was broken by a deep notch. That would be our pass, afar,
and set high, filled with an intense, a burning sapphire. We had Indian
guides.

Day, evening, camp and night. Dawn, trumpets, breakfast and good
understanding and jollity. After breakfast the march, and where was
any road up the heights? And being none we would make one and did, our
hidalgos toiling with the least. By eve we were in the high pass, level
ground under our feet, above us magnificent trees. We called it the Pass
of the Hidalgos. We threw ourselves down and slept. At sunrise we pushed
on, and presently saw what Juan Lepe once before had seen, the vast
southward-lying plain and the golden mountains of Cibao.

There rose a cry, it was so beautiful! The Admiral named it Vega Real,
the Royal Plain.

Sweating, panting, we came at last down that most difficult descent
into rolling forest and then to a small bright stream, beside it garden
patches and fifty huts. The inhabitants fled madly, we heard their
frightened shouts and the screaming of children. Thereafter we tried to
keep in advance a small body of Indians, so that they might tell that
the gods were coming, but that they would not injure.

Acclivity and declivity fell away. We were fully in an enormous, fertile
and populous plain.

The horses and the horsemen! At first they thought that these were one.
Whe