THE LUG AY AN INDIANS. 91 



should have been most profoundly impressed by its beauty, for no- 

 where on earth can we find a fairer land than these Isles of June. 

 The exciting occupations incident upon his arrival left him little 

 time for writing, but he faithfully jotted down day by day in his 

 log-book in short, crisp sentences which even now are full of graph- 

 ic interest, the impressions which were still fresh upon him. The 

 United States Coast Survey has recently done good service to his- 

 tory by the publication of an English translation of this rare and 

 almost unknown document, and the extracts in this paper are from 

 this translation. After he set sail on the second day, he says that 

 he saw so many islands that he could not decide to which one he 

 should go first, and the men he had taken told him by signs that 

 they were innumerable. On the fifth day he writes of the island 

 which he named Isabella : " There was in it twelve leagues, as 

 far as a cape which I called Cape Beautiful, which is in the west, 

 and so it is beautiful, round, and very deep and free from shoals ; 

 at first it is rocky and low, but farther in it is a sandy beach, as 

 it is along most of our coast. The island is the most beautiful 

 thing I have seen ; if the others are very beautiful, this is still 

 more so ; it has many trees, very green and Very large, and this 

 land is higher than that of the other islands I have discovered, 

 although it can not be called mountainous. Yet gentle hills 

 enhance with their contrasts the beauty of the plain, and there 

 appears to be much water in the middle of the island. Northeast 

 of this cape there is an extensive promontory, and there are many 

 groves very thick and very large. I wished to anchor off it in order 

 to land, and visit so handsome a spot, but it was shallow and I 

 could not anchor, except far from land, and the wind was very 

 favorable to come to this cape, where I am now anchored, and 

 which I have called the Cape Beautiful because it is so ; and so I 

 did not anchor off that promontory, because I saw this cape so 

 green and so beautiful, as are all the other things and lands of 

 these islands, so that I do not know to which to go first, nor do 

 my eyes grow tired with looking at such beautiful verdure ; and 

 when I reached this cape the odor came so good and sweet from 

 flowers or trees on the land, that it was the sweetest thing in the 

 world." 



Of the Island of Fernandina, he says (October 16th) : " The 

 island is very green and level, and exceedingly fertile. ... I saw 

 many trees whose shape was very different from ours, and many 

 of them which had branches of many kinds, although all growing 

 from one trunk, and one branch of one kind and another of 

 another kind, and so different that the diversity of the kinds is 

 the greatest wonder of the world for instance, one branch had 

 leaves like those of cane, and another like those of a mastic ; and 

 thus on a single tree there were five or six of these kinds, and all 



