We went with these Indians to their town, evidently the town which we sought.  And indeed it was larger, fitter, a more ordered community than any we had met this side Ocean-Sea, though far, far from travelers’ tales of Orient cities!  It was set under trees, palm trees and others, by the side of a clear river.  The huts were larger than those by the sea, and set not at random but in rows with a great trodden square in the middle.  From town to river where they fished and where, under overhanging palms, we found many Canoes, ran a way wider than a path, much like a narrow road.  But there were no wheeled vehicles nor draught animals.  We were to find that in all these lands they on occasion carried their caciques or the sick or hurt in litters or palanquins borne on men’s shoulders.  But for carrying, grinding, drawing, they knew naught of the wheel.  It seemed strange that any part of Asia should not know!

In this town we found the cacique, and with him a butio or priest.  Once, too, I thought, our king and church were undeveloped like these.  We were looking in these lands upon the bud which elsewhere we knew in the flower.  That to Juan Lepe seemed the difference between them and us.

The people swarmed out upon us.  When the first admiration was somewhat over, when Diego Colon and the two seaside men and the Cubans of the burning sticks had made explanation, we were swept with them into their public square and to a hut much larger than common where we found a stately Indian, the cacique, and an ancient wrinkled man, the butio.  These met us with their own assumption of something like godship.  They had no lack of manner, and Luis and I had the Castilian to draw upon.  Then came presents and Diego Colon interpreting.  But as for the Admiral’s letter, though I showed it, it was not understood.

It was gazed upon and touched, considered a heavenly rarity like the hawk bells we gave them, but not read nor tried to be read.  The writing upon it was the natural veining of some most strange leaf that grew in heaven, or it was the pattern miraculously woven by a miraculous workman with thread miraculously finer than their cotton!  It was strange that they should have no notion at all—­not even their chieftains and priests—­of writing!  Any part of Asia, however withdrawn, surely should have tradition there, if not practice!

In this hut or lodge, doored but not windowed, we found a kind of table and seats fashioned from blocks of some dark wood rudely carved and polished.  The cacique would have us seated, sat himself beside us, the butio at his hand.