beauty and delightfulness as the day exceeds the night; wherefore I have
often told my companions that though I should exert my utmost endeavours
to give your highness a perfect account of it, my tongue and pen must ever
fall short of the truth. I was astonished at the sight of so much beauty,
and know not how to describe it. I have formerly written of other
countries, describing their trees, and fruits, and plants, and harbours,
and all belonging to them as largely as I could, yet not so as I ought, as
all our people affirmed that no others could possibly be more delightful.
But this so far excels every other which I have seen, that I am
constrained to be silent; wishing that others may see it and give its
description, that they may prove how little credit is to be got, more than
I have done, in writing and speaking on this subject so far inferior to
what it deserves."

While going up this river in the boat, the admiral saw a canoe hauled on
shore among the trees and under cover of a bower or roof, which was as
large as a twelve-oared barge, and yet hollowed out of the trunk of one
tree. In a house hard by they found a ball of wax and a mans skull, each,
in a basket, hanging to a post, and the same was afterwards found in
another house; and our people surmized that these might be the skulls of
the founders of these two houses. No people could be found in this place
to give any information, as all the inhabitants fled from their houses on
the appearance of the Spaniards. They afterwards found another canoe all
of one piece, about seventy feet long, which would have carried fifty
persons.

Having sailed 106 leagues eastwards along the coast of Cuba, the admiral
at length reached the eastmost point of that island, to which he gave the
name of Cape Alpha; and on Wednesday the fifth December he struck across
the channel between Cuba and Hispaniola, which islands are sixteen leagues