Note 2 — Chapter IX

All night we stood off and on, rather joyful at the thought of finding this port, and at dawn we found ourselves 3 leagues to leeward of the place where the natives had been seen; and looking out a first and a second time, there was no sign of that bay, but only a narrow and long reef almost covered by the water. There was one place where there were some palm trees, for which reason the Captain sent both the boats, well manned and armed with jars, to seek for water. They found the beach very difficult, most of it rocks, on which the waves broke with great fury. But undaunted by this, our people jumped into the water up to their waists, loaded with arquebuses, spades, and crowbars, and the last, whose name was Belmonte,2 had such difficulty that, if Ensign Rozo3 had not helped him with his spear, which enabled him to get out, there would have been an end of his career. Marching in good order, they entered a palm grove, where they found, at the foot of a tree, a number of brown stones, and one in the form of an altar, covered with branches. It was supposed that this was a burial-place, or a place where the Devil spoke to and deceived these miserable natives, without there being any one to obstruct him. Our people, to sanctify the place, set up a cross,4 and gave God thanks on their knees for being the first to hoist His royal standard in an unknown place inhabited by heathens. In sorrow for their evil condition, they spoke thus: “How long, O pious Lord, is the darkness in which they live to last for these people?” They said this with all due reverence; and, leaving the cross, they began to dig for water, which they did not find, but were able to quench their actual thirst with cocoa-nuts.