448 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [voL. 48 
“There are, both in this and in the other islands, an infinite 
number of birds like those we have in our country, and many others 
such as we had never seen. No kind of domestic fowl has been 
found here, with the exception of some ducks in the houses of the 
island of Turuqueira.t Those ducks were in size larger than the 
ones we have in Spain, though smaller than geese, very pretty, 
with flat crest,-and most of them as white as snow, but some also 
black. 
“We ran along the coast of this island nearly a hundred leagues. 
We continued our course till we came to a harbor, which we named 
Monte Cristo, where we remained two days in order to observe the 
position and formation of the land in its neighborhood. ‘There was 
a large river of excellent water close by,” but the surrounding 
ground was inundated, and consequently ill-calculated for a place 
of habitation.* 
“ As we went on making observations of this river and the neigh- 
boring land, some of our people discovered the bodies of two dead 
men in the grass by the river bank, one with a rope around his neck 
and the other with another rope round his feet: this was on the first 
day of our landing there. On the following day they found two 
other corpses farther on along the river, and it was noticed that 
one of them had a great quantity of beard. This was regarded as 
a very suspicious circumstance by many of us, because, as I have 
already said, all these Indians are beardless. 
“This harbor is twelve leagues from the place where the Chris- 
tians had been left by the admiral on his return to Spain from the 
first voyage,> and under the protection of Guacamari, a king of 
these Indians who I suppose is one of the principal sovereigns of 
this island. After we anchored at said spot,® the admiral ordered 
two lombards to be fired in order to see if there was any response 
from the Christians, who would fire in return, as a salute, for they 
also had lombards with them; but we received no reply, nor did we 
see on the sea-shore any body, or any sign of houses whatever. 
* As already explained, the old island of Turuqueira is Guadeloupe. 
2?This river was called by the natives Yaqui, and has now the name Rio 
de Oro. 
8’This plain remark shows how well fitted was Dr. Chanca, as a medical 
man and a sanitarian, to accompany that large number of explorers and 
colonizers, which included many distinguished men. 
*That day was November 28, 1493. 
5A distance of 36 Spanish miles, equivalent to about 31 English miles. 
The spot here referred to is the harbor named by Columbus, on his first 
voyage, La Navidad (the Nativity), reached by this large fleet of the second 
voyage on the night-fall of November 27, 1493. 
