This must certainly be admitted. We have already related what the companions of Pedro Arias and some officials discovered at the port of Santa Marta in the Cariai region when they penetrated there with the whole fleet. Every day the harvest increases, and overtops that of the last. The exploits of Saturn and Hercules and other heroes, glorified by antiquity, are reduced to nothing. If the incessant efforts of the Spaniards result in new discoveries, we shall give our attention to them. May Your Holiness fare well, and let me know your opinion upon these aggrandisements of your Apostolic Chair, and thus encourage me in my future labours.

E

BOOK V

VERY creature in this sublunary world, Most
Holy Father, that gives birth to something,

either immediately afterwards closes the womb or rests for a period. The new continent, however, is not governed by this rule, for each day it creates without ceasing and brings forth new products, which continue to furnish men gifted with power and an enthusiasm for novelties, sufficient material to satisfy their curiosity.

Your Holiness may ask, "Why this preamble?" The reason is that I had scarcely finished composing and dictating the story of the adventures of Vasco Nuñez and his companions during their exploration of the South Sea, and had hardly despatched that narration to Your Holiness by Giovanni Ruffo di Forli, Archbishop of Cosenza and Galeazzo Butrigario, Apostolic nuncios and stimulators of my somnolent spirits, than new letters' arrived from Pedro Arias whose departure last year as commander of a fleet bound for the new continent we have already announced. The General duly arrived with his soldiers and his ships. These letters are signed by Juan Cabedo whom Your Holiness, upon the solicitation of the Catholic King, appointed Bishop of the province of Darien, and his signature is accompanied by those of the principal officials sent to administer the government, viz.: Alonzo de Ponte, Diego Marques, and Juan de Tavira. May Your Holiness, therefore, deign to accept the narrative of this voyage.

If still in existence these letters have yet to be found.

On the eve of the ides of April, 1514, Pedro Arias gave the signal to start and sailed from the port of San Lucar de Barrameda, a fortified place at the mouth of the Boetis, called by the Spaniards the Guadalquivir. From the mouth of the Boetis, to the seven Canary Islands the distance is about four hundred miles. Some people think these islands correspond to the Fortunate Isles, but others hold a contrary opinion. These islands are named as follows: Lancelota and Fortaventura are the first sighted, after which the Grand Canary, followed by Teneriffe: Gomera lies a short distance to the north of Teneriffe and the islands of Palma and Ferro seem to form a rear-guard. After a voyage of eight days, Pedro Arias landed at Gomera. His fleet consisted of seventeen vessels, carrying fifteen hundred men, to which number he had been restricted; for he left behind him more than two thousand discontented and disconsolate men, who begged to be allowed to embark at their own expense; such was their avidity for gold and such their desire to behold the new continent.

Pedro Arias stopped sixteen days at Gomera, to take on a supply of wood and water, and to repair his ships damaged by a storm, especially the flag-ship, which had lost her rudder. The archipelago of the

Canaries is indeed a most convenient port for navigators. The expedition left the Canaries the nones of May, and saw no land until the third day of the nones of June, when the ships approached the island of the man-eating cannibals which has been named Domingo. On this island, which is about eight hundred leagues from Gomera, Pedro Arias remained four days and replenished his supply of water and wood. of a human being was discovered. many crabs and huge lizards.

Not a man or a trace
Along the coast were
The course afterwards

passed by the islands of Madanino and Guadeloupe and Maria Galante, of which I have spoken at length in my

First Decade. Pedro Arias also sailed over vast stretches of water full of grass'; neither the Admiral, Columbus, who first discoveredthese lands and crossed this sea of grass, nor the Spaniards accompanying Pedro Arias are able to explain the cause of this growth. Some people think the sea is muddy thereabouts and the grasses, growing on the bottom, reach to the surface; similar phenomena being observed in lakes and large rivers of running waters. Others do not think that the grasses grow in that sea, but are torn up by storms from the numerous reefs and afterwards float about; but it is impossible to prove anything because it is not known yet whether they fasten themselves to the prows of the ships they follow or whether they float after being pulled up. I am inclined to believe they grow in those waters, otherwise the ships would collect them in their course, just as brooms gather up all the rubbish in the house,-which would thus delay their progress.

The fourth day of the ides of March snow-covered mountains were observed. The sea runs strongly to the west and its current is as rapid as a mountain torrent. Nevertheless the Spaniards did not lay their course directly towards the west, but deviated slightly to the south. I hope to be able to demonstrate this by one of the tables of the new cosmography which it is my intention to write, if God gives me life. The Gaira River, celebrated for the massacre of the Spaniards during the voyage of Roderigo Colmenares, which I have elsewhere related, rises in these mountains. Many other rivers water this coast. The province of Caramaira has two

The Mare Sargassum of the ancients: also called Fucus Natans, and by the Spaniards Mar de Sargasso. A curious marine meadow nearly seven times larger than France, in extent, lying between 19° and 34° north latitude. There is a lesser Fucus bank between the Bahamas and the Bermudas. Consult Aristotle, Meteor. ii., 1, 14; De mirabilibus auscutationibus, p. 100; Theophrastus, Historia Plantarum, iv., 7: Arienus, Ora Maritima, v., 408; Humboldt, Cosmos, tom. ii.; Gaffarel, La Mer des Sargasses; Leps, Bulletin de la Soc. Geog., Sept., 1865.

VOL. I.-22

celebrated harbours, the first being Carthagena and the second Santa Marta, these being their Spanish names. A small province of the latter is called by the natives Saturma. The harbour of Santa Marta is very near the snow-covered mountains; in fact it lies at their foot. The port of Carthagena is fifty leagues from there, to the west. Wonderful things are written about the port of Santa Marta, and all who come back tell such. Among the latter is Vespucci,' nephew of Amerigo Vespucci of Florence who, at his death, bequeathed his knowledge of navigation and cosmography to his nephew. This young man has, in fact, been sent by the King as pilot to the flagship and commissioned to take the astronomical observations. The steering has been entrusted to the principal pilot, Juan Serrano, a Castilian, who had often sailed in those parts. I have often invited this young Vespucci to my table, not only because he possesses real talent, but also because he has taken notes of all he observed during his voyage.2

According to the letters of Pedro Arias, and to the narrations of Vespucci, what happened is as follows: It is believed that the natives belong to the same race as the Caribs or Cannibals, for they are just as overbearing and cruel. They seek to repulse from their shores all Spaniards who approach for they consider them as enemies and are determined to prevent their landing, despite their attempts. These naked barbarians are so determined and courageous, that they ventured to attack the entire squadron and tried to

1 He was appointed cartographer of the Casa de Contractacion at Seville, in 1512. Henry Harrisse makes frequent mention of the Vespucci in his work on the Cabots.

* One of many instances of Peter Martyr's hospitality to men of parts and activity, from whose conversation and narrations he set himself to glean the material for his writings. His information was first-hand, and was frequently poured out to him over his hospitable board, under which the home-coming adventurers were glad to stretch their legs, while their genial host stimulated their memories and loosed their tongues with the generous wines of his adopted country.