- YBARRA| LETTER OF DR. DIEGO ALVAREZ CHANCA 453 
own eyes before many days have passed; indeed, we should go there 
at once were it not because we have so many things to attend to 
that there are not enough men among us to do it at present. And 
this is in consequence of one-third of our people having fallen sick 
within four or five days after we landed here, which misfortune 
I think has happened principally on account of the toil and priva- 
tions of the journey, to which must be added the variableness of 
the climate ;! but I trust in our Lord to be able to restore all the 
sick to health.” 
“My idea of these Indians is that if we could talk their language, 
they would all become converted to our religion,® for they do before 
the altars exactly the same things they see us doing, as, for instance: 
kneeling and bowing, singing the Ave Maria, or doing any other 
devotional exercises, and making the sign of the cross over one’s 
self. They all say that they wish to become Christians, for, in 
reality, they are idolaters, having in their houses many kinds of 
strange figures. I asked them the meaning of those figures, and 
they told me ‘things of Turey,’ by which they meant ‘ of Heaven,’ 
once I made the pretence that I was going to throw those figures 
into the fire, and this action of mine grieved them so much that they 
began to weep. They believe that every thing, no matter what, 
we have brought with us, comes from Heaven, and also called it 
Turey. 
1The climate changes suddenly in these West Indian islands from very 
hot and dry to comparatively cool and very damp, due to heavy and long- 
continued rain. 
2Columbus himself was also sick with malaria fever for several weeks, 
and seven months later suffered a dangerous malady, which I have ventured 
to diagnose as typhus, or “ship fever,’ in my monograph on “ The Medical 
History of Christopher Columbus” (which is the first, and only writing in 
existence on that subject), published in English in “ Journal of the American 
Medical Association” for May 5, 1894, and “The Dublin Journal of Medical 
Science” for August and September, 1894. I have also published it in 
Spanish, French, and Italian. 
3This belief of Dr. Chanca was fully confirmed in a very short time after- 
' ward, for all those Indians soon became strong Catholics, the same as are the 
Indians still remaining in all the Spanish-speaking countries of America. 
4Most of them were rough images of snakes, crocodiles and other creep- 
ing animals. Their name for the evil spirit or devil was cemi. They had 
also speaking gods, or oracles, and their augurs or priests were known as 
buhitis, who played, besides, the same parts among them as the “ medicine- 
men” of the Indians of these northern regions of America. The religious 
songs of the Lucayans, which were also their war songs to celebrate their 
victories—but not the war-dance or ghost-dance, and songs, of the North 
American indigines before their battling against some foe—and their funeral 
chants, when burying their dead caciques and noblemen, were called areitos. 
