heretofore unknown
particulars I have learned from him and from several others. A
detailed description of Hispaniola may serve as an introduction to
this narrative, for is not Hispaniola the capital and the market where
the most precious gifts of the ocean accumulate?

Round about the island lie a thousand and more Nereid nymphs, fair,
graceful, and elegant, serving as its ornaments like to another
Tethys, their queen and their mother. By Nereids I mean to say the
islands scattered round about Hispaniola, concerning which we shall
give some brief information. Afterwards will come the island of pearls
which our compatriots call Rico, and which lies in the gulf of San
Miguel in the South Sea. It has already been explored and marvellous
things found; and yet more wonderful are promised for the future, for
its brilliant pearls are worthy to figure in the necklaces, bracelets,
and crown of a Cleopatra. It will not be out of place at the close
of this narrative to say something of the shells which produce these
pearls. Let us now come to this elysian Hispaniola, and begin by
explaining its name; after which we will describe its conformation,
its harbours, climate, and conclude by the divisions of its territory.

We have spoken in our First Decade of the island of Matanino, a word
pronounced with the accent on the last syllable. Not to return too
often to the same subject, Your Holiness will note the accent marking
all these native words is placed where it should fall. It is claimed
that the first inhabitants of Hispaniola were islanders of Matanino,
who had been driven from that country by hostile factions and had
arrived there in their canoes dug out of a single tree-trunk, by which
I mean to say their barques. Thus did Dardanus arrive from Corythus
and Teucer from Crete, in Asia, in the region later called the
Trojade. Thus did the Tyrians and the Sidonians, under the leadership
of the fabulous Dido, reach the coasts of Africa. The people of
Matanino, expelled from their homes, established themselves in that
part of the island of Hispaniola called Cahonao, upon the banks of a
river called Bahaboni. In like manner we read in Roman history that
the Trojan AEneas, after he arrived in Italy, established himself on
the banks of the Latin Tiber. There lies across the mouth of the river
Bahaboni an island where, according to tradition, these immigrants
built their first house, calling it Camoteia. This place was
consecrated and