There was little enough, now appearing, in the India thus far found to enrich Spain. In their noses the natives displayed gold, always a royal monopoly when discovered; and they brought cotton for barter, on which the admiral immediately laid the same restriction. Being informed, by signs, that the metal came from the south, after examining the shore thereabout in boats, the Spaniards set sail on the 14th, took possession of Santa María de la Concepcion on the 15th, of Fernandina, now Exuma, the day following, and afterward of Isabela, now Isla Larga, or Long Island; also of a group to which they gave the name Islas de Arena. Soils and other substances, atmospheres and sunshines, were all familiar; plants and animals, though differing in degree and kind, were similar to those they had always been accustomed to see. One creation was everywhere apparent; one nature; one rule. It was wonderful, stupendous! And if these human kind have souls, what a mighty work is here to fit them for eternity! Crossing the Bahama Bank, they came on the 28th to Cuba, which Columbus called Juana, and which, with its dense uprolling green spangled with parrots, gay woodpeckers, and humming-birds, scarlet flamingoes and glittering insects; its trees of royal palm, cocoanut, cedar, mahogany, and shrubs of spicy fragrance; its unknown fruits and foods; its transparent waters whose finny denizens flashed back the sunlight from their variegated scales, all under the brightest of skies, all breathed upon by softest airs, and lapped in serenest seas, was more like his own Zipangu, if, indeed, it was not Mangi itself.