De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2): The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'AngheraAnghiera, Pietro Martire d'
History
De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2): The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera
Anghiera, Pietro Martire d'
America -- Early accounts to 1600
There is very little rain either in Xaragua, the kingdom of Beuchios
Anacauchoa, or in the Hazua district of the country called Caihibi;
also in the valley of the salt- and fresh-water lakes and in Yacciu, a
district or canton of the province of Bainoa. In all these countries
are ancient ditches, by means of which the islanders irrigate their
fields as intelligently as did the inhabitants of New Carthage, called
Spartana, or those of the kingdom of Murcia, where it rarely rains.
The Maguana divides the provinces of Bainoa from that of Caihibi,
while the Savana divides it from Guaccaiarima. In the deeper valleys
there is a heavier rainfall than the natives require, and the
neighbourhood of Santo Domingo is likewise better watered than is
necessary, but everywhere else the rainfall is moderate. The same
variations of temperature prevail in Hispaniola as in other countries.
I have enumerated in my First Decade the colonies established in
Hispaniola by the Spaniards, and since that time they have founded the
small towns of Porto de la Plata, Porto Real, Lares, Villanova,
Assua, and Salvatiera. Let us now describe these of the innumerable
neighbouring islands which are known and which we have already
compared to the Nereids, daughters of Tethys, and their mother's
ornament. I shall begin with the nearest one, which is remarkable
because of another fountain of Arethusa, but which serves no purpose.
Six miles distant from the coast of the mother island lies an isle
which the Spaniards, ignoring its former name, call Dos Arboles [Two
Trees], because only two trees grow there. It is near them that a
spring, whose waters flow by secret channels under the sea from
Hispaniola, gushes forth, just as Alpheus left Eridus to reappear in
Sicily at the fountain of Arethusa. This fact is established by the
finding of leaves of the _hobis_, mirobolane, and many other trees
growing in Hispaniola, which are carried thither by the stream of this
fountain, for no such trees are found on the smaller island. This
fountain takes its rise in the Yiamiroa River, which flows from the
Guaccaiarima district near the Savana country. The isle is not more
than one mile in circumference, and is used as a fish market.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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