ABSTRACT
Here Columbus, in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, laid the foundation of a town, and, in honour of his patron Queen, called it Isabella; Pedro Fernandez Coronel was appointed Chief Justice; Antonio de Torres, brother to the Prince Don Juan's nurse, had the command of the fort; and on the 6th January 1494, the festival of the Epiphany, mass was celebrated by thirteen priests in the new chapel. All the public buildings were of stone; the private ones ef wood, covered with leaves and grass; the whole were built with the greatest dispatch. Several sorts of seeds were sown, that grew rapidly and luxuriantly. The Indians were filled with admiration, and obeyed the Spaniards with the greatest willingness and respect. Peter Martyr says, " Upon a high hill on the north side of the island he builded a city, because this place was most apt for that purpose, by reason of a mine of stones which was near unto the same, serving well both to build with, and also to make lime. At the bottom of this hill there is a great plain, of threescore miles in length, and in breadth somewhere twelve, somewhere twenty miles where it is broadest, and six miles where it is narrowest; through this plain run divers fair rivers of wholesome waters; but the greatest of them, which is navigable, falleth into the haven of the city for the space of half a furlong. How fertile and fruitful this valley is, you shall understand by these things which follow. On the shore of this river they have limited and enclosed certain ground, to make gardens and orchards, in the which all kind of bigger herbs, as radish, lettuce, coleworts, borage and such other, wax ripe, within sixteen days after the seed is sown; likewise melons, gourds, cucumbers, and such other, within the space of thirty six days: these garden herbs they have fresh and green all the whole year. Also the roots of the canes or reeds, of the liquor whereof sugar is made, grow a cubit high ivithin the space of fifteen days ; but the liquor is not yet hardened. The like they affirm of plants or shrouds of young vines; and that they have the second year gathered ripe and sweet grapes of the same; but by reason of too much rankness, they bear but few clusters. Furthermore, a man of the country sowed a little wheat about the calends of February, and brought with him to the city a handful of the ripe ears of the same, the third day before the calends of April, which was that year the vigil of the Resurrection of our Lord. Also, all kinds of pulse, as beans, pease, fitches, tares, and such other, are ripe twice in the year; as all they
which come from thence affirm with one voice : yet the ground is not universally apt to bear wheat.1 In the meantime, while these things were doing, the admiral sent out a company of thirty men, to search the region of Cipanga, otherwise called Cibana," which it was understood lay three days march in the interior. The command was given to Gorvalon and Ojeda. In six days they had travelled about twenty leagues to the southward; the two first through an uninhabited district,afterwards through a very difficult pass; they then crossed the Yaque, which flows to the westward, through a luxuriant valley, and found themselves at the foot of a high chain of mountains, which run across the island, through the middle of the province of Cibao, which signifies stony, and abounds with flint. Rivers flow in all directions from these mountains, through fertile vallies; and gold is found in the sands of all.
