[Note 16:  A sea-lamprey, also called remora and echineis.  Oviedo gives details concerning the manner of catching, raising, and training the young lampreys to serve as game-fish. Hist. delle Indie, cap. x., in Ramusio.  The account is interesting and despite obvious inaccuracies may have a basis of truth.]

Continuing his route towards the west, the Admiral arrived several days later in the neighbourhood of a very lofty mountain, where, because of the fertility of the soil, there were many inhabitants.  The natives assembled in crowds, and brought bread, cotton, rabbits, and birds on board the ships.  They inquired with great curiosity of the interpreter, if this new race of men was descended from heaven.  Their king, and a number of wise men who accompanied him, made known by signs that this land was not an island.  Landing on another neighbouring island, which almost touched Cuba, the Spaniards were unable to discover a single inhabitant; everybody, men and women, had fled on their approach.  They found there four dogs which could not bark and were of hideous aspect.  The people eat them just as we do kids.  Geese, ducks, and herons abound in that island.  Between these islands and the continent there were such strong currents that the Admiral had great difficulty in tacking, and the water was so shallow that the keels of the ships sometimes scraped the sand.  For a space of forty miles the water of these currents was white, and so thick that one would have sworn the sea was sprinkled with flour.  Having finally regained the open, the Admiral discovered, eighty miles farther on, another very lofty mountain.  He landed to replenish his supply of water and wood.  In the midst of the thick palm and pine groves two springs of sweet water were found.  While the men were busy cutting wood and filling their barrels, one of our archers went off in the woods to hunt.  He there suddenly encountered a native, so well dressed in a white tunic, that at the first glance he believed he saw before him one of the Friars of Santa Maria de la Merced, whom the Admiral had brought with him.  This native was soon followed by two others, likewise coming out of the forest, and then by a troop of about thirty men, all of them clothed.  Our archer turned and ran shouting, as quickly as he could, towards the ships.  These people dressed in tunics shouted after him, and tried by all means of persuasion in their power to calm his fears.  But he did not stop in his flight.  Upon hearing this news, the Admiral, delighted finally to discover a civilised nation, at once landed a troop of armed men, ordering them to advance, if necessary, as far as forty miles into the country, until they should find those people dressed in tunics, or at least some other inhabitants.[17] The Spaniards marched through the forest and emerged on an extensive plain overgrown with brush, amidst which there was no vestige of a path.  They sought to cut a pathway through the undergrowth, but wandered