t we might, we passed from that silverness and
broken land into a great bay or gulf, so deep that we might hardly find
bottom, and here we anchored close to a long point of Cuba covered thick
with palms.

We went ashore for water and fruit. Solitary--neither man nor woman! We
found tracks upon the sand that some among us would have it were made
by griffons. One of our men had the thought that he might procure some
large bird for the Admiral's table. Taking a crossbow he passed alone
through the palms into the deeper wood. He was gone an hour, and when he
returned it was in haste, with a chalk face and great eyes. I was seated
in the boat with the master of the _Cordera_ and heard his tale. He had
found what he thought a natural aisle of the forest and had stolen
down it, looking keenly for pigeon or larger bird. A tree with drooping
branches stood across the aisle, he said. He went around the trunk,
which was a great one, and it was as though he had turned into the nave
of the cathedral. There was space, but trees like pillars on either
side, and at the end three great trees covered to the tops with vine and
purple grapes. And here he saw before him, under the greatest tree,
a man in a long white gown like a White Friar. The sight halted him,
turned him, he averred, to stone. Two more men in white dresses but
shorter than that of the first, came from among the trees and he saw
behind these a number in like clothing. He could not tell, now he
thought of it, if they were carrying lances or palms. We had looked so
long for clothed folk that it was the white clothes he thought of. The
same with their faces--he could not tell about them--he thought they
were fair. Suddenly, it seemed, Pan had fallen upon him and put him
forth in terror. He had turned and raced through the forest, here to the
sea. He did not think the white-clad men had seen him.

We took him to the Admiral who listened, then brought his hands
together. "Hath it not--hath it not, I ask you--sound of Prester John?"

With the dawn he had men ashore, and there he went himself, with
him Juan de la Cosa and Juan Lepe. The crossbowman--it was Felipe
Garcia--showed the way. We found indeed the forest aisle and nave, and
the three trees and the purple grapes, a vast vine with heavy clusters,
but we found no men and no sign of men.

The Admiral was not discouraged. "If he truly saw then, and I believe he
did, then are they somewhere--"

We beat all the neighborho