The mountain valley where the cacique lived is called Magona.  It is traversed by auriferous rivers, is generously productive and marvellously fertile.  In the month of June of this same year occurred a frightful tempest; whirlwinds reaching to the skies uprooted the largest trees that were swept within their vortex.  When this typhoon reached the port of Isabella, only three ships were riding at anchor; their cables were broken, and after three or four shocks—­though there was no tempest or tide at the time—­they sank.  It is said that in that year the sea penetrated more deeply than usual into the earth, and that it rose more than a cubit.  The natives whispered that the Spaniards were the cause of this disturbance of the elements and these catastrophes.  These tempests, which the Greeks called typhoons, are called by the natives huracanes.[8] According to their accounts hurricanes are sufficiently frequent in the island, but they never attain such violence and fury.  None of the islanders living, nor any of their ancestors remembers that such an atmospheric disturbance, capable of uprooting the greatest trees, had ever swept the island; nor, on the other hand, had the sea ever been so turbulent, or the tidewater so ravaged.  Wherever plains border the sea, flowery meadows are found nearby.

[Note 8:  The word hurricane is from Hurakan, the name of the god or culture hero who, in the mythology of Yucatan, corresponded to Quetzalcoatl of the Mexicans.  Being the god of the winds, storms were ascribed to his fury, and the typhoons and tempests which broke out at times with destructive violence over the seas and countries were called by his name.]

Let us now return to Caunaboa.  When it was sought to take them to the sovereigns of Spain, both he and his brother died of grief on the voyage.  The destruction of his ships detained the Admiral at Hispaniola; but, as he had at his disposal the necessary artisans, he ordered two caravels to be built immediately.

While these orders were being carried out, he despatched his brother, Bartholomew Columbus,—­Adelantado, the Spaniards call him, of the island,—­with a number of miners and a troop of soldiers, to the gold mines, which had been discovered by the assistance of the natives sixty leagues from Isabella in the direction of Cipangu, As some very ancient pits were found there, the Admiral believed that he had rediscovered in those mines the ancient treasures which, it is stated in the Old Testament, King Solomon of Jerusalem had found in the Persian Gulf.  Whether this be true or false is not for me to decide.  These mines cover an area of six miles.  The miners, in sifting some dry earth gathered at different places, declared that they had found such a great quantity of gold hidden in that earth that a miner could easily collect three drachmas in a day’s work.  After they had explored that region, the Adelantado and the miners wrote to Columbus acquainting him with their discovery.  The ships being then ready, Columbus immediately and with great delight embarked to return to Spain; that is to say, the fifth day of the ides of March in the year 1495.[9] He confided the government of the province with full powers to his brother, the Adelantado, Bartholomew Columbus.