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of two kinds, one which loses its leaves, and another which never sheds 

 them or remains always green. In this island of Espanola there was a 

 (jeyba, eight leagues from this city, where has persisted the name Arbol 

 Gordo, whereof I now speak very often to the Admiral Don Diego 

 Colom, and tell him that he with fourteen other men, touching hands, 

 could not encompass this (jeyba that they called arbol gordo. This 

 tree died and rotted, but many people are now living who saw it and 

 say the same of its grandeur. For me this is not much of a wonder, 

 recalling the larger ones of these same geybas that I have seen on the 

 Terra-Firma. There was another great tree of these (^eybas in the 

 town of Santiago, in this island of Espafiola ; but both this one and the 

 other are much smaller than those that are found on the Terra-Firma. 



Since in the province of Nicaragua are the greatest trees which I 

 have seen up to this time and which much exceed all that I have told 

 of, I will now speak only of one <;eyba which I saw many times in that 

 province, not half a league from the house and seat of the chief of 

 Fhecoatega, near a river belonging to the district of the chief of 

 Gua(;ama, who was under the protection of a man of property named 

 Miguel Lucas or of his partners Francisco Nunez and Luis Farfan. 

 This tree I measured by my own hands with a hemp cord and it had 

 a circumference at the base of thirty-three yards, which equals one 

 hundred and thirty-two spans ; and since it stood on the bank of a 

 river it could not be measured low about the roots on that side and it 

 should be without doubt three yards larger ; all put together, well 

 measured, I estimate that it was thirty-six yards, or one hundred and 

 forty-four spans, in circumference. This is the largest thing in the 

 tree line that I have seen. 



The wood of these (;eybas is soft and easy to cut and of little weight 

 and the tree is not held in esteem for building or for more than two 

 purposes. One is its wool and the other the shade, which is exten- 

 sive, for these are great trees with very spreading branches, and the 

 shade is healthful and not heavy like the shade of other trees that exist 

 in these Indies, which are notoriously harmful ; like that of the tree 

 from which is made the poison with which the Carib Indians charge 

 their arrows. The fruit of these trees is a pod, shaped like the largest 

 finger of the hand, but as thick as two fingers, rounded and full of 

 delicate wool ; after ripening, these pods dry and open through the 

 heat of the sun, and then the wind carries away the wool, in which are 

 certain little grains which are its seed, as is the case with the cotton. 

 This wool appears to me to be a notable thing and the fruit of the 

 q:eyba is after the manner of the bitter cucumbers of Castile, except 

 that the fruits of the ^eyba are larger and thicker ; but the largest is 

 not longer than the great finger of the hand ; and when it is ripe it 

 breaks lengthwise into four parts, and with the first wind is seen the 

 wool (this fruit has nothing else within it) and it looks as if it has 

 snowed wherever the wool has sufficed to cover the ground. This 

 wool is short and it seems to me that it could not be spun into thread ; 

 but for bed-pillows and cushions of the drawing-room (free from wet) 



