artifice, and a corpse stood thereon uncovered, and, looking within it, it seemed as if he stood upright.  Of the other arts they told me that there was excellence.  Great and little animals are there in quantities, and very different from ours; among which I saw boars of frightful form so that a dog of the Irish breed dared not face them.  With a cross-bow I had wounded an animal which exactly resembles a baboon only that it was much larger and has a face like a human being.  I had pierced it with an arrow from one side to the other, entering in the breast and going out near the tail, and because it was very ferocious I cut off one of the fore feet which rather seemed to be a hand, and one of the hind feet.  The boars seeing this commenced to set up their bristles and fled with great fear, seeing the blood of the other animal.  When I saw this I caused to be thrown them the ’uegare,’—­[Peccary]—­certain animals they call so, where it stood, and approaching him, near as he was to death, and the arrow still sticking in his body, he wound his tail around his snout and held it fast, and with the other hand which remained free, seized him by the neck as an enemy.  This act, so magnificent and novel, together with the fine country and hunting of wild beasts, made me write this to your Majesties.”

The natives at this anchorage of Cariari were rather suspicious, but Columbus seized two of them to act as guides in his journey further down the coast.  Weighing anchor on October 5th he worked along the Costa Rica shore, which here turns to the eastward again, and soon found a tribe of natives who wore large ornaments of gold.  They were reluctant to part with the gold, but as usual pointed down the coast and said that there was much more gold there; they even gave a name to the place where the gold could be found—­Veragua; and for once this country was found to have a real existence.  The fleet anchored there on October 17th, being greeted by defiant blasts of conch shells and splashing of water from the indignant natives.  Business was done, however:  seventeen gold discs in exchange for three hawks’ bells.

Still Columbus went on in pursuit of his geographical chimera; even gold had no power to detain him from the earnest search for this imaginary strait.  Here and there along the coast he saw increasing signs of civilisation—­once a wall built of mud and stone, which made him think of Cathay again.  He now got it into his head that the region he was in was ten days’ journey from the Ganges, and that it was surrounded by water; which if it means anything means that he thought he was on a large island ten days’ sail to the eastward of the coast of India.  Altogether at sea as to the facts, poor Admiral, but with heart and purpose steadfast and right enough.