Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/30

4 us and blew two days and nights. The sea lashed us boisterously, and every moment we expected shipwreck. But finally the wind ceased, and twenty-one days after we had left harbor in Cuba we came in sight of land. Every heart, filled with gratitude towards God, rejoiced greatly.

It was a new country to us, no report of it had ever reached our ears, and the morning of the 5th of March Indians came toward us in ten large canoes as swift as their paddles and sails could bring them. Many of the canoes, large enough to hold forty or fifty Indians, were hollowed out of the trunks of trees like our kneading troughs.

As the canoes approached we made signs of friendship to the Indians, beckoning them to come on with our hands and waving our cloaks; for no one among us could speak the language of Yucatan. Without showing the least fear they did paddle alongside, and more than thirty clambered aboard our main ship. They were dressed in cotton jackets, or cuirasses, and small aprons which hung from their hips half

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