The admiral proposed to continue the voyage, but was told that the inspector James Marque had gone on shore with eight soldiers, at which conduct he was much offended.  Parties of men were sent out in different directions, but could not find him, on account of the thickness of the woods.  Other parties were again sent on shore, who fired muskets and sounded trumpets, yet all to no purpose, and Columbus was inclined to leave Marque to his fate, being much concerned at the delay.  Yet lest these men might perish, he ordered the ships to take in wood and water, and sent Alonso de Ojeda, who commanded one of the caravels, with forty men, to view the country, and to search for Marque and his party.  Ojeda returned without any tidings of the stragglers, and reported that in travelling six leagues he had waded through twenty-six rivers, many of which took his men to the middle.  In this excursion much cotton was seen, and a vast variety of birds in the woods.  At length, on Friday the 8th November, the inspector and his men returned, excusing himself that he had lost his way in the prodigiously thick woods, and was unable to get back sooner:  But the admiral ordered him to be put under arrest for going on shore without leave.  In some of the houses at this island, cotton was found both raw and spun, and likewise a strange sort of looms in which it was wove by the natives.  The houses were well constructed, and better stored with provisions than those in the islands which were discovered in the first voyage:  But they found abundance of human heads, hung up in the houses, and many baskets full of human bones, from which it was concluded that the natives were canibals, or fed on human flesh.

On the 10th November he coasted along the island of Guadaloupe, towards the north-west, steering for Hispaniola, and discovered a very high island, which he called Montserrate, because it resembled the rocks of that place.  He next found a very round island, everywhere perpendicular, so that it seemed impossible to get upon it without the assistance of ladders, and which he named Santa Maria la Redonda, or the round island of St Mary.  To another island he gave the name of Santa Maria et Antigua or ancient St Mary, the coast of which extended fifteen or twenty leagues.  Many other islands were seen to the northward, which were very high, and covered with woods.  He anchored at one of these which he named St Martin; and at another on the 14th November, which he named Santa Cruz, or the Holy Cross.  They took four women and two children at this island; and as the boat was returning from the shore, a canoe was met in which there were four men and a woman, who stood on their guard.  The woman shot arrows as well as the men, and one of her arrows pierced through a buckler.  In boarding, the canoe was overset, and one of the Indians discharged his bow very vigorously while swimming.  Holding on their course, so many islands were seen close together that