“The country is very attractive and fruitful, and covered with very great woods and forests, in which the trees are always green, for they never lose their foliage. There are unnumbered fruits very different from those in our country. This land lies within the limits of the torrid zone, below the line describing the tropic of Cancer, where the pole is elevated twenty-three degrees above the horizon, at the end of the second climate.[195] ... In this country we made a baptismal font, and baptized many of the people, who called us _caribi_, meaning men of great wisdom. “The country is called Lariab by the natives. We sailed along its coast always in sight of land and ran on the whole course toward the northwest eight hundred and seventy leagues.[196] ... We found gold in some places but not much. The discovery of the country and the knowledge that gold was in it satisfied us.... “On our return we sailed toward the sea going between the north and east, and after seven days we reached some islands.... We landed on one of them, where we found many people, who called the island Iti [Hayti?].... We set sail for Spain with two hundred and twenty-two slave-prisoners, and arrived at the port of Cadiz on the fifteenth of October, 1498,[197] where we were well received, and sold our slaves. This is what happened to me in this my first voyage that may be considered noteworthy.”[198] “Shortly after the departure of the fleet with which Vespucci went to the New World, Columbus complained to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella that the permission given by them in 1495 to those who desired to go on voyages of discovery toward the west was prejudicial to the privileges previously granted him by their Spanish majesties. The latter therefore revoked their letters-patent of the tenth of April, 1495, on the second of June, 1497, declaring that it should “have no force nor effect at any time, or in any manner whatever, so as to be prejudicial to the said admiral, and to whatever we have thus granted and confirmed to him.”[199] “The fitting out of the fleet [for Columbus’s third voyage to the Indies] was delayed much longer than was necessary through the negligence and bad management of the king’s officers, and particularly that of Don Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca, archdeacon of Seville. Hence it happened that Don Juan, who was afterward bishop of Burgos, was, from that time onward, a bitter enemy to the admiral and his affairs, and was the chief person among those who brought him into disgrace with their catholic majesties.[200] ... The admiral made his preparations for the voyage with all possible diligence, and on the thirtieth of May, 1498, set sail from the bay of San Lucar de Berrameda, with six ships, freighted with provisions and other necessaries for the relief of the planters in Española and the peopling of that island.”[201]