Page 276 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

276 from Italy to the Canary Islands

was no painting nor other adornment except for a stone statue having the
image of a man with a ball in his hand and his shame covered with palm
breeches according to the custom of the inhabitants of that town; they took
it, loaded it on the ship, and brought it back to Lisbon. This island is filled
with people and well cultivated; the people collect wheat, corn, fruit, and
figs most of all. The wheat and grains, they eat like the birds do, or as flour,
out of which they do not make bread, and they drink water.
When the sailors left from this island, they saw more of them in the
distance, some five miles away, and other ten or twenty, or fifteen miles
away; they then went to a third island, where they found nothing but very
tall trees standing straight toward the sky; thence they passed into another,
which they saw was abundant with streams and very good water, and tim-
ber, and dogfish, which they killed with sticks and stones and then ate; they
say that they are bigger than ours, equal to the taste or maybe even better;
they also found falcons and other rapacious birds. They did not wander
long on these islands, as they saw they were completely deserted. Across
from them, they saw another island with big rocky mountains, mostly cov-
ered with thick rainclouds, but that in fair weather appeared to be very
beautiful, and according to those who saw it, it was inhabited; and after
that they went on to see many other islands, some inhabited, some not, thir-
teen in number; and the more they moved forward, the more of them they
saw, where the ocean was calmer, even more than it is here; they found an
ocean floor very suitable for the anchors, although with not many ports;
all abundant with water. Five of those islands they saw are inhabited, but
not equally, some more, some less; of the other thirteen they reached, many
of them have no inhabitants. And besides, they speak different languages
so that they cannot understand each other, and none of them have ships or
other means to travel from island to island, except for swimming.
They also found another island, where they would not land, because
to their eyes there appeared some kind of wonder. They say that there is a
very high mountain there, estimated to stand for thirty miles, and further-
more, a certain whiteness is seen on the summit from very far off; and the
whole mountain is rocky; that whiteness has the likeness of a rock, but is
not rock; they believe it to be a very sharp stone, on the summit of which
is a tree the size of a ship’s mast, from which hangs an antenna with a
lateen sail from a great ship aimed like a shield, which stretches out far
when blown by the winds; and then the tree similar to the mast of a large
ship seems to gradually go back down, and then back up again, and thus