es
beautifully adorned with trees and green herbage. Some of the trees
resembled mastic, and others lignum aloes, some like palms with smooth
green stems, and many other kinds. Landing on these islands, they found no
inhabitants, but there were the appearances of many fires having been made
in them, by fishers; as the inhabitants of Cuba go there for fish and fowl,
which are got in profusion. The Indians eat several filthy things; as
great spiders, worms bred in rotten wood, fish half raw, from which they
scoop out the eyes as soon as taken, and devour them; besides many other
things quite disgusting to the Spaniards. In this employment of fishing,
the Indians occupy themselves during several seasons of the year; going
sometimes to one island and sometimes to another, as people who tire of
one diet change to another. In one of these islands the Spaniards killed
an animal resembling a wild boar, and among many kinds of fish which they
drew up in their nets, one was like a swine, with a very hard skin, the
tail being the only soft part. They found likewise some mother-of-pearl.
The sea was observed to ebb and flow much more here than in any other part,
which the admiral attributed to the numbers of islands; and low water was
noticed to be when the moon was S.S.W, contrary to what it is in Spain.

On Sunday the 18th November, the admiral returned to _Puerto del Principe_,
and erected a large wooden cross at its mouth. On Monday the 19th, he
resumed his voyage for the island, afterwards named Hispaniola, which some
of the Indians called _Bohio_, and others _Babeque_; yet it afterwards
appeared that Babeque was not Hispaniola, but the continent, for they
called it Caribana[6]. The Indian word _Bohio_ signifies a house or
habitation; and as that term was applied to the island of Hispaniola, it
seemed to denote that it was full of _Bohios_ or houses. On account of
contrary winds, the admiral spent three or four days cruising about the
island of Isabella, but did not go very near, lest the Indians he had on
board might escape; at this place they found many of the weeds they had
before met with on the ocean, and perceived that they were drifted by the
currents. Martin Alonzo Pinzon, learning from the Indians that there was
much gold at Bohio, and eager to enrich himself, left the admiral on
Wednesday the 21st November, without any stress of weather or other
legitimate cause; his ship being always foremost, as the best sailer, he