United States or Algeria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Your excellency must know that in all parts where we landed we found a great quantity of cotton, and the country filled with cotton-trees, so that all the vessels in the world might be loaded in these parts with cotton and dye-wood. At length we sailed three hundred leagues farther along the coast, constantly finding savage but brave people, and very often fighting with them and vanquishing them.

"Spain," says he, "is spreading her wings, augmenting her empire, and extending her name and glory to the antipodes.... Of eighteen vessels dispatched by my sovereigns with the admiral Columbus, in his second voyage to the western hemisphere, twelve have returned and have brought Gossampine cotton, huge trees of dye-wood, and many other articles held with us as precious, the natural productions of that hitherto hidden world; and besides all other things, no small quantity of gold.

Puerto Seguro is in lat. 16°S. and about long. 39° 40'W. This country of Brasil derived its name from the dye-wood so called. Originally, according to Castaneda, there were only ten ships and two caravels: Both the caravels have been already accounted for as having left the fleet; and after the loss of four ships, six only ought to have remained.

"An were it asked me when by hell-fire burnt, * When flames of heart my vitals hold and hem, 'Which wouldst thou chose, say wouldst thou rather them, * Or drink sweet cooling draught? I'd answer, 'Them! " Then he put his hand to the band of her petticoat-trousers and drew it and loosed it, for his soul lusted after her, when he saw a jewel, red as dye-wood, made fast to the band.

This got redder and redder, and struck terror into the more superstitious of the crew. Even Cooper, whose heart was stout, leaned over the bulwarks and eyed the red stream, gushing into the sea from the lee scuppers, and said aloud, "Ay, bleed to death, ye bitch! We shan't be long behind ye." Hazel inquired, and found the ship had a quantity of dye-wood among her cargo.

They found out at last the manner in which the sword cuts, and thought it best to let us enter. We found their houses filled with the finest cotton, and the beams of their dwellings were made of dye-wood. We took a quantity of their cotton and some dye-wood and returned to the ships.

The woods of the country are various and valuable; but, perhaps, the best known for its useful properties, is the Sapan dye-wood, called sibocao. It comes from various provinces; but principally from Yloylo and Pangasinan.

The end of it was that Ojeda left the island without having reported himself to Columbus, but not before he had completed his business which was that of provisioning his ships and collecting dye-wood and slaves. And so exit Ojeda from the Columbian drama. Of his own drama only one more act remained to be played; which, for the sake of our past interest in him, we will mention here.

In the miscellaneous group we find wood-alcohol, dye-wood, medicinal barks, roots and galls; precious gums, resins and all of the spices; the various kinds of excelsior used for packing, bedding and upholstery; wood-pulp and paper, inlaid work, vegetable ivory, and cocoanut shells; the entire series of willow ware, and wooden, or hollow ware.

The giant mahogany from Central America. The olive of Palestine. The cedars of Lebanon. The ancient oaks of Dodona. The magnificent dye-wood and rosewood of Brazil. The majestic live-oak of Florida. The druidical-oaks of England. The smooth, elastic bamboo, which by its size and strength becomes so useful in house-building, in both China and Japan.