Grijalva called Isla Blanca, and then the Isla Verde, gleaming green with foliage amidst the green waters, four leagues from the continent; coming presently to a third island, a league and a half from the mainland, which afforded good anchorage. This, according to Oviedo, was on the 18th of June. On landing the Spaniards found two stone temples, within which lay five human bodies, with bowels opened and limbs cut off; and all about were human heads on poles, while at the top of one of the edifices, ascended by stone steps, was the likeness of a lion in marble, with a hollow head, showing the tongue cut out, and opposite to it a stone idol and blood-fount. Here was evidently a sacrifice to some pagan deity; and touching it is to witness the horror with which these men of Spain regarded such shocking spectacles, while viewing complacently their own atrocious cruelties.
Crossing from Isla de Sacrificios, as they called this blood-bespattered place, the Spaniards landed on the adjoining mainland, and making for themselves shelter with boughs and sails began trading for gold; but the natives being timid and returns inconsiderable, Grijalva proceeded to another island, less than a league from the mainland and provided with water. Here was a harbor sheltered from the dread yet grateful north winds, which in winter rush in with passionate energy, driving away the dreadful summer vómito and tumbling huge surges on the strand, though now they formed but a wanton breeze by day, which slept on waves burnished by the radiant sun or silvered by the moon. Here they landed and erected huts upon the sand.[1] To the Spaniards all nature along this seaboard seemed dyed with the blood
- ↑ The Chaplain Diaz affirms that ten days were passed on the mainland, where Indians dressed in mantles brought them food, and where they melted their gold into bars; and that on the San Juan Island they appointed one of the natives cacique, christening him Ovando. 'El capitaneo li disse che non volevano se non oro et loro resposseno che lo portariano laltro giorno portorono oro fondido in verghe et lo capitaneo li disse che portasseno molto d quello.' Itinerario, in Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., i. 293.
