to that with which the sufferer from an effusion of blood sought the remedy for his malady; or Peter, whose place, Most Holy Father, you occupy, marched upon the waves when he beheld our Lord.  The conditions being accepted, the young men were bound and the eight judges took their places.  The signal was given, and each one called upon his zemes, to come to his assistance.  The two champions beheld the zemes with a long tail and an enormous mouth furnished with teeth and horns just like the images.  This devil sought to untie the young man who was acting as his champion, but at the first invocation of the Comendador the Virgin appeared.  The judges, with wide open eyes and attentive minds, waited to see what would happen.  She touched the devil with the wand she was carrying and put him to flight, afterwards causing the bonds of her champion to transfer themselves to the body of his adversary.  This miracle struck terror into the Comendador’s enemies, and they recognised that the zemes of the Virgin was more powerful than their own.

The consequence of this event was, that when the news spread that Christians had landed in Cuba, the Comendador’s neighbours, who were his bitter enemies, and had often made war upon him, sent to Enciso asking for priests to baptise them.  Enciso immediately despatched two priests who were with him, and in one day one hundred and thirty men of the Comendador’s enemies were baptised and became his firm friends and allies.  We have in another place noted that chickens had greatly increased in the country, owing to the care of our compatriots.  Each native who had received baptism presented the priest with a cock or a hen, but not with a capon, because they have not yet learned to castrate the chickens and make capons of them.  They also brought salted fish and cakes made of fresh flour.  Six of the neophytes accompanied the priests when they returned to the coasts, carrying these presents, which procured the Spaniards a splendid Easter.  They had left Darien only two days before the Sunday of St. Lazarus, and Easter overtook them when they were doubling the last promontory of Cuba.  In response to the petition of the Comendador they left with him a Spaniard, who volunteered for the purpose of teaching the cacique’s subjects and their neighbours the Angelic Salutation, their idea being that the more words of the prayer to the Virgin they knew, the better disposed she would be to them.

Enciso agreed, after which he resumed his course to Hispaniola, which was not far distant.  From thence he betook himself to the King, who was then in residence at Valladolid, where I talked intimately with him.  Enciso seriously influenced the King against the adventurer Vasco Nunez, and secured his condemnation.  I have wished, Most Holy Father, to furnish you these particulars concerning the religion of the natives.  They reach me not only from Enciso, but from a number of other most trustworthy personages.  I have