The physiognomy and forms of the vegetation, the impenetrable thickets of the forests, in which one can scarcely distinguish the stems to which the several blossoms and leaves belong, the wild luxuriance of the flowering soil along the humid shores, and the rose-coloured flamingoes which, fishing at early morning at the mouth of the rivers, impart animation to the scenery,--all in turn arrested the attention of the old mariner as he sailed along the shores of Cuba, between the small Lucayan Islands and the Jardinillos. Each new country seemed to him more beautiful than the last; he complained that he could not find new words in which to give the Queen an impression of the beauty of the Cuban coast. It will repay us to examine the Diary more closely, since Humboldt only treated it shortly and in scattered extracts, and it has been partly falsified, unintentionally, by attempts to modernize the language instead of adhering to literal translation. What Peschel says, for instance, is pretty but distinctly exaggerated: Columbus was never weary of listening to the nightingales, comparing the genial Indian climate with the Andalusian spring, and admiring the luxuriant wilderness on these humid shores, with their dense vegetation and forests so rich in all kinds of plants, and alive with swarms of parrots ... with an open eye for all the beauties of Nature and all the wonders of creation, he looked at the splendour of the tropics very much as a tender father looks into the bright eyes of his child.[8] The Diary of November 3rd says: He could see nothing, owing to the dense foliage of the trees, which were very fresh and odoriferous; so that he felt no doubt that there were aromatic herbs among them. He said that all he saw was so beautiful that his eyes could never tire of gazing upon such loveliness, nor his ears of listening to the songs of birds. November 14th: He saw so many islands that he could not count them all, with very high land covered with trees of many kinds and an infinite number of palms. He was much astonished to see so many lofty islands, and assured the Sovereigns that the mountains and islands he had seen since yesterday seemed to him to be second to none in the world, so high and clear of clouds and snow, with the sea at their bases so deep. November 25th: