The gold in the Admiral's hand might have been gold of consciousness.
After this day for days we sailed along Cuba strand, seeing many a fair haven and entering two or three.

There were villages, and those dusk, naked folk to whom by now we were well used, running to beach or cliff brow, making signs, seeming to cry, "Heaven come down, heaven, heaven and the gods!" The notion of a sail had never come to them, though with their cotton they might have made them.

They were slow to learn that the wind pushed us, acting like a thousand tireless rowers.

We were thrillingly new to them and altogether magical.

To any seeing eye a ship under full sail is a beautiful, stately, thrilling thing! To these red men there was a perilous joy in the vision.