Columbus then determined to seek further acquaintance with the natives, and accordingly had his boat rowed to a point on the shore of the river where they were assembled in great numbers. They were naked, and painted; some wearing tufts of feathers on their heads, and all carrying bundles of darts. "I came to them," said Columbus, "and gave them bread, asking for the darts, in exchange for which I gave copper ornaments, bells and glass beads. This made them peaceable, so that they came to the boats again and gave us what they had. The sailors had killed a turtle, and the shell was on the boat, cut into pieces, some of which the sailors gave them in exchange for a bundle of darts. They were like the other people we had seen, with the same belief that we had come from heaven." They were ready, he added, to give anything that they had in exchange for any trifle, which they would accept without saying that it was little, and Columbus believed that they would thus give away gold and spices, if they had had any. In one of the houses which he entered "shells and other things were fastened to the ceiling." He thought that it was a temple, and he inquired, by signs, if such was the case and if prayers were there offered. The natives replied in the negative, and one of them climbed up to take down the ceiling ornaments and give them to Columbus, who accepted a few of them. It was early in November, 1492, that one of the most noteworthy discoveries in relation to Cuba was made. At that time Columbus sent inland from the port at the mouth of the Rio de Mares two men, Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres, to explore the inland country and to find if possible the high road to the capital and palace of the Great Khan. These men did not find what they had been sent for, but something else, which proved in after years to be of incalculable value to Cuba and to the world. To quote Las Casas: "They met on the road many men and women, passing to their villages, the men always with half-burned brands in their hands and certain herbs for smoking. These herbs are dry and are placed in a dry leaf made in the shape of the paper tubes which the boys make at Easter. Lighted at one end, at the other the smoke is sucked or drawn in with the breath. The effect of it is to make them sleepy and as it were intoxicated, and they say that using it relieves the feeling of fatigue. These rolls they call 'tabacos.'" Some of Columbus's men, when it was reported to them, tried smoking the "tabacos," and the habit soon became prevalent among the Spanish colonists in Hispaniola.