And it happeneth sometimes that a Christian goeth out of the way and is lost fifteen or twenty days, because of the many paths in the thick groves that cross to and fro made by the oxen; and being thus lost they sustain themselves with fruits and palmitos--for there be many great groves of palm trees through all the island--they yield no other fruit that is of any profit. The Isle of _Cuba_ is three hundred leagues long from the east to the west, and is in some places thirty, in others forty leagues from north to south. It hath six towns of Christians, to wit, _St. Jago_, _Baracoa_, _Bayamo_, _Puerto de Principes_, _S. Espirito_, and _Havana_. Every one hath between thirty and forty households, except _St. Jago_ and _Havana_, which have about sixty or eighty houses. They have churches in each of them, and a chaplain which confesseth them and saith mass. In _St. Jago_ is a monastery of Franciscan friars; it hath but few friars, and is well provided of alms, because the country is rich. The Church of _St. Jago_ hath honest revenue, and there is a curate and prebends, and many priests, as the church of that city, which is the chief of all the island. There is in this country much gold and few slaves to get it; for many have made away themselves, because of the Christians' evil usage of them in the mines. A steward of _Vasquez Porcallo_, which was an inhabitor in that island, understanding that his slaves would make away themselves, stayed for them with a cudgel in his hand at the place where they were to meet, and told them that they could neither do nor think anything that he did not know before, and that he came thither to kill himself, with them, to the end, that if he had used them badly in this world, he might use them worse in the world to come: and this was a means that they changed their purpose, and turned home again to do that which he commanded them.