country.  While on his outward march, Hojeda apprehended a cacique who resided on the other side of the Rio del Oro, together with his brother and nephew, sending them in irons to the admiral, and cut off the ears of one of his subjects in the great place of his town, for the following reason:  This cacique had sent five Indians along with three Christians who were travelling from St Thomas to Isabella to carry their clothes over the river at the ford, and they being come to the middle of the river returned to the town with the clothes, when the cacique, instead of punishing the people for the robbery, took the clothes to himself and refused to restore them.  Another cacique who dwelt beyond the river, relying on the service he had done the Christians, went along with the prisoners to Isabella to intercede with the admiral for their pardon.  The admiral received him very courteously, but ordered that the prisoners should be brought out into the market-place with their hands bound, and sentenced them to die.  On seeing this the friendly cacique petitioned for their lives with many tears, promising that they should never be guilty of any other offence; at length the admiral relented and discharged them all.  Soon afterwards a person came on horseback from St Thomas, and reported that he had found five Christian prisoners in the town of the cacique who had just been pardoned, who had been taken by his subjects while going from Isabella; that by frightening the Indians with his horse he had obtained the relief of the prisoners, above 400 of the Indians running away from him alone, two of whom he wounded in the pursuit; and that when he crossed the river the Indians turned back upon the Christians to retake them, but by making as if he would go against them, they all ran away lest the horse should fly over the river.

Before proceeding on his intended voyage for discovering the continent, the admiral appointed a council to govern the island in his absence, of which he appointed his brother Don James Columbus president:  the others were F. Boyl and Peter Fernandez Coronell regents, together with Alonzo Sanchez de Caravajal, rector of Bracca, and Juan de Luxan of Madrid, gentleman to their Catholic majesties.  That there might be no want of flour for supporting the people, he hastened the building of the mills, notwithstanding the rain and floods which very much obstructed the work.  Owing to these rains, in the admirals opinion, the great fertility of the island proceeded.  So wonderful is this fertility that they eat the fruits of the trees in the month of November, while at the same time they are blossoming afresh, by which it is evident that they bear fruit twice every year.  But herbs and seeds grow at all times indiscriminately, and nests with eggs and young birds are found on the trees throughout the whole year.  As the fruitfulness of the island appeared so extraordinary, so daily accounts arrived of its abundant wealth, and of the discovery of new mines, which coincided with the reports of the Indians concerning the great quantity of gold to be met with in several parts of the island[11a].  But the admiral could not rest satisfied with these things, and resolved to prosecute his discoveries by sea, beginning with the coast of Cuba, not yet knowing whether it was an island or a continent.