ith
great artifice, and a corpse stood thereon uncovered, and, looking
within it, it seemed as if he stood upright. Of the other arts they
told me that there was excellence. Great and little animals are
there in quantities, and very different from ours; among which I saw
boars of frightful form so that a dog of the Irish breed dared not
face them. With a cross-bow I had wounded an animal which exactly
resembles a baboon only that it was much larger and has a face like
a human being. I had pierced it with an arrow from one side to the
other, entering in the breast and going out near the tail, and
because it was very ferocious I cut off one of the fore feet which
rather seemed to be a hand, and one of the hind feet. The boars
seeing this commenced to set up their bristles and fled with great
fear, seeing the blood of the other animal. When I saw this I
caused to be thrown them the 'uegare,'--[Peccary]--certain animals
they call so, where it stood, and approaching him, near as he was to
death, and the arrow still sticking in his body, he wound his tail
around his snout and held it fast, and with the other hand which
remained free, seized him by the neck as an enemy. This act, so
magnificent and novel, together with the fine country and hunting of
wild beasts, made me write this to your Majesties."

The natives at this anchorage of Cariari were rather suspicious, but
Columbus seized two of them to act as guides in his journey further down
the coast. Weighing anchor on October 5th he worked along the Costa Rica
shore, which here turns to the eastward again, and soon found a tribe of
natives who wore large ornaments of gold. They were reluctant to part
with the gold, but as usual pointed down the coast and said that there
was much more gold there; they even gave a name to the place where the
gold could be found--Veragua; and for once this country was found to have
a real existence. The fleet anchored there on October 17th, being
greeted by defiant blasts of conch shells and splashing of water from the
indignant natives. Business was done, however: seventeen gold discs in
exchange for three hawks' bells.

Still Columbus went on in pursuit of his geographical chimera; even gold
had no power to detain him from the earnest search for this imaginary
strait. Here and there along the coast he saw increasing signs of
civ