On another occasion, when a conference was held with one of the tribes, great alarm was caused by a notary, who attended to take notes of the conversation.

The savages had never before seen the operation of writing; and they regarded it as a spell which was to have some magic effect upon them, and which they must neutralize by various mystic fumigations which they believed to act as counter-charms.

"They were themselves skilled sorcerers," says Columbus,--whose credulity in such matters was only that of his age.
EASTERLY COURSE ABANDONED; THE BETHLEHEM RIVER.
It was not until the 5th of December that the admiral could resolve to abandon his easterly course, although the conviction had been gradually forcing itself upon him that the condition of his ships was such as to render a prosecution of his voyage almost impossible.

He had scarcely turned back, intending to found a settlement on the river Veragua, before he encountered a storm which tried his worm-eaten caravels very severely.
The thunder and lightning wore incessant; the waterspouts (the first they had seen) threatened to engulph them; huge crests of waves burst in phosphorescent floods over them; and their escape, if we consider the smallness of the caravels, and the force of a tropical cyclone, was little less than miraculous.

At last, after eight days' tossing to and fro, the admiral gained the mouth of a river, which he named the Bethlehem, because he entered it on the day of the Epiphany.
A SETTLEMENT FORMED.
In this neighbourhood there was a powerful cacique, named Quibia, whose territory contained much gold, and with whom, therefore, the Spaniards were anxious to treat.