Bartolomé de las Casas

“ Hojeda got under weigh with his ships, and proceeded along the coast to some villages and a province called Cahay, where there is a charming country and people, ten or twelve leagues from Xaragua. Here he landed with forty men, and seized all the provisions he wanted by force, especially yams and sweet potatoes, for here are the best and finest in the island, leaving both Christians and Indians in great want. Seeing that he had made sail, Roldan sent Diego de Escobar along the sea-shore in pursuit with twenty-five men. ”

“ It is a very good fruit, pleasant to the taste, and wholesome for the body. The land abounds in their articles of food, and the people are of good manners, and the most peaceful we have yet met [25] with. We were seventeen days in this port, enjoying it very much, and every day new people from the interior came to see us, wondering at our faces and the whiteness of our skins, at our clothes and arms, and at the shape and size of our ships. From these people we had tidings that there was another tribe to the westward who were their enemies, and who had an immense quantity of pearls. ”

“ They wage war among themselves with people who do not speak their language, carrying it on with great cruelty, giving no quarter, if not inflicting greater punishment. When they go to war they take their women with them; not because they fight, but because they carry the provisions in rear of the men. A woman carries a burden on her back, which a man would not carry, for thirty or forty leagues, as we have seen many times. They have no leader, nor do they march in any order, no one being captain. ”

“ They have neither king nor lord, nor do they obey anyone, but live in freedom. Having moved themselves to wage war, when the enemy have killed or captured any of them, the oldest relation arises and goes preaching through the streets and calling upon his countrymen to come with him to avenge the death of his relation, and thus he moves them by compassion. They do not bring men to justice, nor punish a criminal. ”

“ We were then 500 leagues to the south of the port whence we had departed, and this was on the 3rd of April. On this day such a tempest arose on the sea that all our sails were blown away, and we ran under bare poles, with a heavy southerly gale and a tremendous sea; the air being very tempestuous. The gale was such that all the people in the fleet were much alarmed. The nights were very long, for the night we had on the 7th of April lasted fifteen hours, the sun being at the end of Aries, and in that region it was winter, as your Magnificence will be well aware. ”

“ Thus had Hojeda coasted the mainland for 400 leagues, 200 to the east of Paria, where he sighted the first land, and this was the only land that he and those with him discovered. Paria and Margarita were discovered by the Admiral, as well as a great part of the said 200 leagues from Margarita to Cabo de la Vela, for the Admiral saw the chain of mountains to the westward as he sailed along, so that all this discovery is due to him. For it does not follow that, in order to be the discoverer of a land or island, a navigator must have passed along the whole of it. ”

“ Varnhagen accepts the Florentine's latitudes, and assumes that when in 23° N. he was near Tampico, on the coast of Mexico. But he rejects the impossible courses and distances of Vespucci, substituting an imaginary voyage of his own, by which he takes our contractor along the coast of North America, [xxvii] round the peninsula of Florida, and up to Cape Hatteras, where, he confesses, "the finest harbour in the world" is not to be found. But such a voyage is a pure assumption, and as a serious argument it is quite inadmissible. The evidence is the other way. ”

“ It pleased God to deliver us from such peril. Our course was now between the north and north-east, for our intention was to reach the coast of Ethiopia, our distance from it being 300 leagues, in the Gulf of the Atlantic Sea. By the grace of God, on the 10th day of May, we came in sight of land, where we were able to refresh ourselves, the land being called La Serra Liona. We were there fifteen days, and thence shaped a course to the islands of the Azores, which are distant nearly 750 leagues from that Serra. ”

“ I think of undertaking a fourth voyage in the same direction, and promise is already made of two ships with their armaments, in which I may seek new regions of the East on a course called Africus. In which journey I hope much to do God honour, to be of service to this kingdom, to secure repute for my old age, and I expect no other result with the permission of this Most Serene King. May God permit what is for the best, and you shall be informed of what happens. ”

“ His Latin editor suggested that his new world should be called America, and the name was adopted by map-makers. It was euphonious and convenient, and, in spite of the protests of Las Casas and Herrera, it eventually became general, and Vespucci usurped the honours that rightly belonged to Columbus. Vespucci may be acquitted of having contemplated so great an injustice. It is possible that he never intended that his letters should be published. He may only have desired to increase his consequence among his own countrymen. ”

“ As they saw the natives so gentle, meek, and tractable, although neither could understand a single word of what the other said, and therefore the Spaniards could not teach the Indians any doctrine, yet, says Americo, they baptized an infinite number; whence it appears how little Americo, and those who were with him, appreciated the practice of the sacraments and the reverence that is due to them, nor even the disposition and frame of mind with which they should be received. It is manifest that those Christians, in baptizing the natives, committed a great offence against God. ”

“ Accuracy and truth were of no consequence so long as they believed in Amerigo Vespucci as the discoverer of the New World and its marvels.
The tales of Amerigo Vespucci have a place in the history of geographical discovery, and require, although they do not deserve, serious consideration; the more so as they have, in recent years, been treated seriously by a learned and accomplished [xliv] writer such as Varnhagen, who has been followed by one or two eminent and well-known men of letters. ”

“ Following them in the boats, during the whole day, we were unable to capture more than two, all the rest escaping on shore. Only four boys remained in the canoe, who were not of their tribe, but prisoners from some other land. They had been castrated, and were all without the virile member, and with the scars fresh, at which we wondered much. Having taken them on board, they told us by signs that they had been castrated to be eaten. We then knew that the people in the canoe belonged to a tribe called Cambali, very fierce men [24] who eat human flesh. ”

“ Alonzo de Hojeda left Cadiz, with four vessels, on May 20th, 1499. Endeavouring to steer by the chart of Columbus, he made a landfall at some distance to the south of Paria, off the mouths of the Orinoco. Coasting along to the northward, he came to the Gulf of Paria, went out by the Boca del Drago, and visited the island of Margarita. He then proceeded along the coast of the continent, visited Curaçoa, which he called the "Isla de los Gigantes", and came to the Gulf of Maracaibo, where he found a village built on piles, which was named Venezuela, or Little Venice. ”

“ Las Casas, therefore, naturally used it as one argument against the truth of Vespucci's narrative, for Paria was well known to be a province of the mainland opposite the island of Trinidad, discovered by Columbus. But in the Italian version the word is Lariab, an L being substituted for P, and b for s. Varnhagen endeavours to make a strong point of this discrepancy. He eagerly adopts Lariab as the correct form, having found (not Lariab) but two words ending in ab in a vocabulary of the Huasteca Indians, whose country is near the northern frontier of Mexico. ”

“ The said Alonso de Hojeda was a great favourite of the Bishop, and when the report of the Admiral and the map arrived, Fonseca suggested to Hojeda to go and make more discoveries in the same direction as the Admiral had taken. For when the thread is discovered and placed in the hand, it is an easy matter to reach the skein. Hojeda was aided by the information which the Admiral had collected from the Indians when he served in the first voyage, that there was a continent behind the lands and islands then reached. ”

“ Here we found a great many people, who received us in a very friendly manner. On shore we made a bastion with our boats, and with casks and our guns, at which we all rejoiced. Here we lightened 80 and cleared our ships, and hauled them up, making all the repairs that were necessary, the people of the country giving us all manner of help, and regularly supplying us with provisions. For in that port we had little relish for our own, which we made fun of, for our provisions for the voyage were running short, and were bad. ”

“ When we wanted to resume our voyage, they made a complaint how, at certain times, a very cruel and hostile tribe came by way of the sea to their land, murdered many of them, subdued them, and took some prisoners, carrying them off to their own houses and land. They added that they were scarcely able to defend themselves, making signs that their enemies were people of an island at a distance of about 100 leagues out at sea. ”

“ The expedition in which Vespucci sailed was organised and fitted out by Alonzo de Hojeda in 1499. Columbus, having discovered the island of Trinidad and the mainland of South America on the 31st of July 1498, arrived at San Domingo in the end of August. In October he sent five ships to Spain with the news of the discovery, a chart of the [vii] new coast-line and islands, and a report containing mention of the existence of pearls. These precious documents fell into the hands of Bishop Fonseca, who showed them to Hojeda, a man whom he favoured. ”

“ The land is very pleasant and fruitful, full of very large woods and forests, and it is always green, for the trees never shed their leaves. The fruits are so numerous that they cannot be enumerated, and all different from ours. This land is within the Torrid Zone, under the parallel which the Tropic of Cancer describes, where the Pole is 23° above the horizon, on the verge of the second climate. ”