west-southwest, and I think so. For I think that if I may trust the
signs which all the Indians of these islands have made me, and those
whom I am carrying in the ships, for by the tongue I do not understand
them, it (Cuba) is the Island of Cipango,(*) of which wonderful things
are told, and on the globes which I have seen and in the painted maps,
it is in this district."

(*) This was the name the old geographers gave to Japan.

The next day they saw seven or eight islands, which are supposed to be
the eastern and southern keys of the Grand Bank of Bahama. He anchored
to the south of them on the twenty-sixth of October, and on the next day
sailed once more for Cuba.

On Sunday, October 28, he arrived there, in what is now called the
Puerto de Nipe; he named it the Puerto de San Salvador. Here, as he went
on, he was again charmed by the beautiful country. He found palms "of
another sort," says Las Casas, "from those of Guinea, and from ours." He
found the island the "most beautiful which eyes have seen, full of very
good ports and deep rivers," and that apparently the sea is never rough
there, as the grass grows down to the water's edge. This greenness to
the sea's edge is still observed there. "Up till that time," says Las
Casas, "he had not experienced in all these islands that the sea was
rough." He had occasion to learn about it later. He mentions also that
the island is mountainous.



CHAPTER V. -- LANDING ON CUBA