nce. Its name was suggested by its beauty,
for, in the Spanish, dandies are called _galanes_.[3]

[Note 3: The island was, in reality, named after one of the ships
of Columbus.]

Nine miles to the east of Guadaloupe lie six other islands called
Todos Santos and Barbadas. These are only barren reefs, but mariners
are obliged to know them. Thirty-five miles north of Guadaloupe looms
the island called Montserrat, which is forty miles in circumference,
and is dominated by a very lofty mountain. An island called Antigua,
thirty miles distant from Guadaloupe, has a circumference of about
forty miles.

The Admiral Diego Columbus, son of the discoverer, told me that when
obliged to go to court he left his wife in Hispaniola, and that she
had written him that an island with rich gold deposits had been
discovered in the midst of the archipelago of the Caribs, but that it
had not yet been visited. Off the left coast of Hispaniola there lies
to the south and near to the port of Beata an island called Alta Vela.
Most astonishing things are told concerning sea monsters found there,
especially about the turtles, which are, so it is said, larger than a
large breast shield. When the breeding time arrives they come out of
the sea, and dig a deep hole in the sand, in which they deposit three
or four hundred eggs. When all their eggs are laid, they cover up the
hole with a quantity of earth sufficient to hide them, and go back to
their feeding grounds in the sea, without paying further heed to their
progeny. When the day, fixed by nature, for the birth of these
animals arrives, a swarm of turtles comes into the world, without the
assistance of their progenitors, and only aided by the sun's rays. It
looks like an ant-hill. The eggs are almost as large as those of a
goose, and the flavour of turtle meat is compared to veal.

There is a large number of other islands, but they are as yet unknown,
and moreover it is not required to sift al1 this meal so carefully
through the sieve. It is sufficient to know that we have in our
control immense countries where, in the course of centuries, our
compatriots, our language, our morals, and our religion will flourish.
It was not from one day to another that the Teucrians peopled Asia,
the Tyrians Libya, or the Greeks and Phoenicians Spain.

I do not mention the islands which protect the north of Hispaniola;
they have extensive fisheries and might be cultivated, but the
Spaniards avoid them because