454 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [voL. 48 
“The little time that we have spent on land has been so much 
occupied in seeking for a place where to establish a settlement,’ and 
in providing ourselves with things we needed, that we have had 
little opportunity of becoming acquainted with the natural produc- 
tions of the soil. In spite of this drawback, we have already seen 
many marvellous things. For instance: trees producing a soft 
silky fiber fine enough (according to the opinion of those who are 
acquainted with that industrial art) to be woven into good cloth. 
And of this kind of trees there are so many, that we might load 
our vessels with the fiber, though it is somewhat difficult to gather 
it because these trees are very thorny, but some means can easily 
be found to overcome that difficulty. 
‘“There are also cotton plants as large as peach trees, which all 
the year round produce cotton, and in abundance. 
“We found other trees which produce wax, as good both in color 
and smell as bees-wax, and equally useful for burning; indeed, with 
very little difference between the one and the other. 
“There is a vast number of trees which yield surprisingly fine 
turpentine. 
“Tar is found in abundance, of very good quality too. 
“We discovered trees which, in my opinion, bear nutmegs, but 
at present without fruit on them, and I say so because the bark 
tastes and smells like nutmegs. 
“T saw one root of ginger, which an Indian was carrying around 
his neck. 
1 They found at last a convenient place. It was on the shore of a good 
bay, on the north coast and upon high ground, with two rivers of potable 
water near by, and the back part well closed by the thick growth of an 
impassible forest that protected it from being set on fire by the Indians on a 
night attack. The building up of the first Christian town of the New World 
was commenced there, in that very spot, and to it Columbus gave the very 
appropriate name of Isabella, his faithful defender and protectoress. 
The engineers who came in that expedition at once laid out the square 
or plaza, and the streets; a convenient site for the church was selected, as 
well as another for the fortress, and a residential quarter for Columbus and 
the subsequent governors of the colony. These three buildings were to be 
made of stone, the principal houses of wood, others of intertwined reeds 
covered with mortar and called in Spanish, embarrado, or, in English, angie, 
and the rest after the Indian fashion or bohios. 
At Isabella the first aqueduct ever built upon American soil was carried 
to completion, and it consisted of a trench or open ditch that conducted the 
water of one of the two rivers through the middle of the principal streets. 
This sort of irrigatory aqueduct is called in Spain, acequia, where there 
are several of these kind of narrow canals. The ruins of the stone build- 
ings in a solitary waste constitute to-day the melancholy relic of that his- 
torical locality. 
