l so very poor that it produces nothing fit for human
sustenance, neither by nature nor by the most laborious
cultivation ... yet here you might see greater plenty of these,
as well as all luxurious superfluities, than in most other
countries of a richer and more fertile soil, for the place, poor
in itself, having become the great mart for the commodities of
India, Persia, and Arabia, was thus abundantly stocked with the
produce of all these countries.

Peter Martyr's[3] point of view was much the same. He was full of
surprise at the splendour round him, and the advantages such
fertility offered to husbandry:

Thus after a few days with cheerful hearts they espied the land
long looked for....

As they coasted along by the shore of certain of these islands,
they heard nightingales sing in the thick woods in the month of
November.

They found also great rivers of fresh water and natural havens of
capacity to harbour great navies of ships.... They found there
wild geese, turtle-doves, and ducks, much greater than ours, and
as white as swans, with heads of purple colour. Also popinjays,
of the which some are green, some yellow, and having their
feathers intermingled with green, yellow, and purple, which
varieties delighted the sense not a little.... They entered into
a main large sea, having in it innumerable islands, marvellously
differing one from another; for some of them were very fruitful,
full of herbs and trees, other some very dry, barren, and rough,
with high rocky mountains of stone, whereof some were of bright
blue, or azurine colour, and other glistening white.

He filled a whole page with descriptions of the wonderful wealth of
flowers, fruit, and vegetables of all kinds, which the ground yields
even in February. The richness of the prairie grass, the charm of the
rivers, the wealth of fruit, the enormous size of the trees (with a
view to native houses), the various kinds of pines, palms, and
chestnuts, and their uses, the immense downfall of water carried to
the sea by the rivers--all this he noted with admiration; but
industrial interest outweighed the aesthetic, even when he called
Spain happier than Italy. There is no trace of any real feeling for
scenery, any grasp of landscape as a whole; he did not advance beyond
scattered details, which attracted his eye chiefly for their material
uses.

But there is