But Wednesday, August 8, a canoe came with 12 men to the caravel and they took them all, and brought them to the ship of the Admiral, and from them he chose six and sent the others to land. From this it appears that the Admiral did it without scruple as he did many other times in the first navigation, it not appearing to him that it was an injustice and an offence against God and his neighbor to take free men against their will, separating fathers from their sons and wives from their husbands and [not reflecting] that according to natural law they were married, and that other men could not take these women, or those men other women, without sin and perhaps a mortal sin of which the Admiral was the efficient cause--and there was the further circumstance that these people came to the ships under tacit security and promised confidence which should have been observed toward them; and beyond this, the scandal and the hatred of the Christians not only there, but in all the earth and among the peoples that should hear of this.
He made sail then towards a point which he calls "de l'Aguja,"[344-1] he does not say when he gave it this name, and from there he says that he discovered the most beautiful lands that have been seen and the most populated, and arriving at one place which for its beauty he called Jardines,[344-2] where there were an infinite number of houses and people, and those whom he had taken told him there were people who were clothed, for which reason he decided to anchor, and infinite canoes came to the ships. These are his words. Each one, he says, wore his cloth so woven in colors, that it appeared an _almayzar_, with one tied on the head and the other covering the rest, as has been already explained. Of these people who now came to the ships, some he says wore gold leaf[344-3] on the breast, and one of the Indians he had taken told him there was much gold there, and that they made large mirrors of it, and they showed how they gathered it. He says mirrors, wherefore the Admiral must have given some mirrors and the Indian must have said by signs that of the gold they made those things, for they did not understand the language. He says that, as he was going hastily along there, because he was losing the supplies which it had cost him so much labor to obtain, and this island Española is more than 300 leagues from there, he did not tarry, which he would have wished very much in order to discover much more land, and says that it is all full of very beautiful islands, much populated, and very high lands and valleys and plains, and all are very large. The people are much more politic than those of Española and warlike, and there are handsome houses. If the Admiral had seen the kingdom of Xaraguá as did his brother the Adelantado and the court of the King Behechio[345-1] he would not have made so absolute a statement.