YBARRA] LETTER OF DR. DIEGO ALVAREZ CHANCA 441 
“There are three islands: this one on which we are is called by 
the natives Turuqueira,;* the other, which was the first we saw, is 
named Cayre,? and the third Ayay.* There is a general resemblance 
among the natives of these three islands, as if they were of the 
same lineage. They do no harm to one another, but each and all 
of them wage war against the inhabitants of the other neighboring ° 
islands, and for this purpose sometimes ‘they go as far as a hundred 
and fifty leagues in their canoes,* which are a narrow kind of 
boat, each made out of a single trunk of a tree.* Their arms are 
arrows, in place of iron weapons, and as they have no iron, some 
of them point their arrows with a sharpened piece of tortoise-shell, 
and others make their arrow heads of fish spines, which are natur- 
ally barbed like coarse saws. These arms are dangerous weapons 
only to naked people like the Indians, causing death or severe in- 
jury, but to men of our nation they are not much to be feared.°® 
*The island of Guadeloupe, named’ by Columbus Nuestra Senora de la 
Guadalupe, as already explained. 
* The island of Dominica. 
°*This must have been the island now known as Martinique, though Dr. 
Chanca fails to mention having been there. It is situated 30 miles south 
by west from Dominica and 20 miles north of St. Lucia. It is almost en- 
tirely of volcanic formation, with several well marked volcanic mountains, 
among which the loftiest peak is that of Mount Pelée in the northwestern 
part of the island. Before the terrific and appalling eruption of May 8 and 
August 30, 1902, which destroyed the city of Saint-Pierre and killed over 
30,000 inhabitants, it had an altitude of about 4,500 feet. This volcano had 
been previously twice in eruption, in 1762 and in 18st. 
At the time of the discovery no one speaks of having seen a volcano there; 
and it is my humble opinion that, like the volcano La Souffriére, on Guade- 
loupe, it is of subsequent origin. On Martinique there are to-day, as on 
Guadeloupe, several extinct volcanoes which in ages gone by were probably 
as active as Mount Pelée and La Souffriére some years ago. Mount Pelée 
remains at present entirely inactive in spite of the great number of slight 
earthquakes in all the neighborhood, and the tremendous upheavals in South 
America, California and Jamaica. Perhaps these subterranean convulsions are 
the very cause of the stoppage of its discharging activity. 
“That is to say, 450 Spanish miles or about 376 English miles, which means 
as far as Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, and Cuba to the nortth, and Trinidad, 
Curagoa, and the north coast of South America to the south. 
°In the language of the Caribbees these boats were called canadas, and 
among the Lucayans acalli, the largest ones, holding forty or fifty persons, 
being known as piraguas, which is still the Spanish name for that kind of 
Indian boat, called in English pirogue. 
The trunk of the tree of which these water crafts were made was exca- 
vated by burning into, a suitable shape. They had no sails and were im- 
pelled by a long paddle of light timber, broad and flat at each end, and 
held at its center by both hands. 
*Dr. Chanca did not then know that these Caribbee arrow points were 
poisoned, probably with the juice of a plant as the manchineel-tree. The 
