very clean and neat, well furnished and set in order. The houses were all built of fine palm branches. They found here many statues shaped like women, and numerous heads somewhat like masks, well made; whether these were used as ornaments, or objects of worship, did not appear. Here, about the houses, were small fowl originally wild, but now tame.” On Tuesday, the thirtieth of October, “they sailed from the river which they had named Rio de Mares, and standing to the northwest, discovered a cape covered with palm trees, which the admiral called Cabo de Palmas; it is fifteen leagues distant from the place of their departure. The Indians on board the Pinta signified to the Spaniards, that beyond this cape was a river, and from this river to Cuba was a distance of a voyage or a journey of four days. The captain of the Pinta declared that he understood Cuba to be a city, and that the land here was a continent of great extent which stretched far to the north; also that the king of this country was at war with the Grand Khan, whom the Indians called Cami, and his country or city, Fava and other names. The admiral determined to steer for this river, and to send a present and the letter of the Spanish sovereigns to the king.... Seemingly the admiral was forty-two degrees distant from the equator toward the north, if the manuscript is not corrupted from which I [Las Casas] have taken this [information], and he says that he had undertaken to go to the Grand Khan, who, he thinks, was near there or in the city of Cathay of the Grand Khan, which city is very large according to what was told before he departed from Spain.”