n these parts with cotton and dye-wood.

"We sailed three hundred leagues farther along this coast,
constantly finding savage but brave people, and very often
fighting with and vanquishing them. We found seven different
languages among them, each of which was not understood by
those who spoke the others. It is said that there are not
more than seventy-seven languages in the world; but I say
that there are _more than a thousand_, as there are more
than forty which I have heard myself. After having sailed
seven hundred leagues or more our ships became leaky, so
that we could hardly keep them free, with two pumps going.
The men also were much fatigued, and the provisions growing
short. We were then within a hundred and twenty leagues of
the island called Hispaniola, discovered by the Admiral
Columbus six [eight] years before. So we determined to
proceed to it and, as it was inhabited by Christians, to
repair our ships there, allow our men a little repose, and
recruit our stock of provisions; because, from this island
to Castile there are three hundred leagues of ocean, without
any land intervening. In seven days we arrived at this
island, where we stayed two months, refitted our ships, and
obtained a supply of provisions.

"We afterwards sailed through a shoal of islands, more than
a thousand in number. We sailed in this sea nearly two
hundred leagues, directly north, until our people had become
worn with fatigue, through having been already nearly a year
at sea. Their allowance per diem was only six ounces of
bread for eating, and three small measures of water for
drinking. Whereupon we concluded to take some prisoners as
slaves, and loading the ships with them to return at once to
Spain. Going, therefore, to certain islands, we possessed
ourselves by force of two hundred and thirty-two, and then
steered our course for Castile. In sixty-seven days we
crossed the ocean, arriving at the Azores, thence sailed by
way of the Canary Islands and the Madeiras to Cadiz.

"We were absent thirteen months on this voyage, exposing
ourselves to awful dangers, discovering a very large country
of Asia, and a great many islands, the largest of them all
inhabited. According to the calculations I have made with
the compass, we have sailed about