182
LIFE AND VOYAGES OF
necks, arms, and ankles.
[BOOK I V .
They repeatedly mentioned the word
Bohio, which Columbus supposed to be the name of the place in question, and that it was some rich district or island. They min gled, however, great extravagancies with their imperfect accounts, describing nations at a distance who had but one eye; others who had the heads of dogs, and who were cannibals—cutting the throats of their prisoners and sucking their blood.* All these reports of gold, and pearls, and spices, many of which were probably fabrications to please the admiral, tended to keep up the persuasion that he was among the valuable coasts and islands of the East.
On making a fire to heat the tar for
careening the ships, the seamen found that the wood they burnt sent forth a powerful odor, and, on examining it, declared that it was mastic.
The wood abounded in the neighboring forests,
insomuch that Columbus flattered himself a thousand quintals of this precious gum might be collected every year; and a more abundant supply procured than that furnished by Scios, and other islands of the Archipelago.
In the course of their researches in
the vegetable kingdom, in quest of the luxuries of commerce, they met with the potato, a humble root, little valued at the time, but a more precious acquisition to man than all the spices of the East. On the 6th of November, the two ambassadors returned, and every one crowded to hear tidings of the interior of the country, and of the prince to whose capital they had been sent.
After
penetrating twelve leagues, they had come to a village of fifty houses, built similarly to those of the coast, but larger; the whole village containing at least a thousand inhabitants. * Primer Viage de Colon.
The natives
Navarrete, lxxi. p 48.