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 conviction that he must eventually arrive at Cathay. Though charmed beyond measure with everything he saw, nothing indicated the lands Marco Polo had described. A verdant soil, and coasts adorned by stately trees, watered by navigable rivers, and indented by commodious harbours, spoke of riches to come; while a fertile and populous country lay before him, with peaceful and industrious inhabitants, who brought him food, and fruits, and fish, in great abundance. There were however no mines of gold, or palaces covered with that precious metal; but there was everything that might encourage habits of industry, with little or nothing to satisfy the cupidity of the settlers, or to lead them to suppose they had discovered a land where man could live otherwise than by the sweat of his brow.

At Santiago de Cuba Columbus was overwhelmed by the simple hospitality of the natives; but as he approached the island of Jamaica he was met by seventy or eighty canoes, filled with savages, gaily painted, and decorated with feathers, advancing in warlike array, uttering loud yells, and brandishing lances of pointed wood. An explanation, however, from the interpreter, and a few presents to the crew of one of the canoes who had ventured nearer than the rest, soothed the caciques of the other canoes, some of which measured upwards of ninety feet in length, and eight feet in breadth, and were hollowed out of one magnificent tree. From Jamaica, Columbus proceeded to Cuba, and having devoted many months to the survey of the whole of that portion of its coast which he could reach, he set sail for Isabella, where he arrived suffering in health, and