Note Back to Main Text — Chapter VI · THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS.

Upon the Honduras coast the Admiral found evidences of semi-civilization with which he was much elated,—such as copper knives and hatchets, pottery of skilled and artistic workmanship, and cotton garments finely woven and beautifully dyed. Here the Spaniards first tasted the chicha, or maize beer, and marvelled at the heavy clubs, armed with sharp blades of obsidian, with which the soldiers of Cortes were by and by to become unpleasantly acquainted. The people here wore cotton clothes, and, according to Ferdinand, the women covered themselves as carefully as the Moorish women of Granada.[610] On inquiring as to the sources of gold and other wealth, the Admiral was now referred to the west, evidently to Yucatan and Guatemala, or, as he supposed, to the neighbourhood of the Ganges. Evidently the way to reach these countries was to keep the land on the starboard and search for the passage between the Eden continent and the Malay peninsula.[611] This course at first led Columbus eastward for a greater number of leagues than he could have relished. Wind and current were dead against him, too; and when, after forty days of wretched weather, Cape Gracias a Dios. he succeeded in doubling the cape which marks on that coast the end of Honduras and the beginning of Nicaragua, and found it turning square to the south, it was doubtless joy at this auspicious change of direction, as well as the sudden relief from head-winds, that prompted him to name that bold prominence Cape Gracias a Dios, or Thanks to God.