On Friday the fifteenth of November the admiral reached the north side of Hispaniola, and immediately sent on shore at Samana one of the natives of the island who had been in Spain, and who being converted to our holy faith, offered to engage all his countrymen to submit to the Christians.  The admiral continued his voyage to the Nativity, and off Cape Angel some Indians came on board to barter their commodities.  Coming to anchor in the bay of Monte Christo a boat was sent on shore, the people of which found two dead men lying near a river.  One of these seemed to be young and the other old, having a rope made of a substance like Spanish broom round his neck, and his arms extended and tied to a piece of wood in the form of a cross.  Having been long dead, it could not be known whether these people were Christians or Indians, but it was considered an evil omen.  The next day, twenty-sixth November, the admiral sent on shore in several places, and the Indians came boldly and freely to converse with the Spaniards, touching their shirts and doublets, and naming these articles in the Spanish language.  This confidence and friendly behaviour relieved the admiral from the fears which he had conceived on account of the dead men; believing that if the natives had injured the Christians whom he had left, they would not have come so boldly on board the ships.  But next day, coming to anchor about midnight near the town of Nauidad or the Nativity, a canoe came to the fleet and asked for the admiral, and being bid to come on board, they refused to do so till they should see him.  The admiral therefore went to the ships side to hear what they had to say, and then two men from the canoe went up with two marks of gold, which they presented with many compliments to the admiral as from the cacique Guacanagari.  Being asked concerning the Christians who were left at the Nativity, they answered that some of them had died of distempers, some had parted from the company and had gone into other parts of the country, and that all of them had four or five wives.  Though it appeared from the way in which these Indians spoke, that all or most of the colonists were dead, yet the admiral did not think fit to take much notice of the circumtance at the time; he therefore dismissed the messengers with some brass trinkets and other baubles for Guacanagari, and a few to themselves.

Towards evening on Thursday the twenty-eighth November the admiral came with all the fleet into the harbour of the Nativity, and found the whole town burnt, and no person whatever could be seen about the place.  Next morning the admiral landed, and was much concerned to find the fort and houses entirely destroyed, and nothing left which had belonged to the Christians, except some tattered garments and other broken articles of no value.  Finding no person at whom he could make inquiries, he went up a river in the neighbourhood with several boats, leaving orders to clean out the well which he had dug in the fort, as he had directed