After experiencing some terrible weather, in the course of which they had
been obliged to catch sharks for food and had once been nearly
overwhelmed by a waterspout, they entered a harbour where, in the words
of young Ferdinand, "we saw the people living like birds in the tops of
the trees, laying sticks across from bough to bough and building their
huts upon them; and though we knew not the reason of the custom we
guessed that it was done for fear of their enemies, or of the griffins
that are in this island." After further experiences of bad weather they
made what looked like a suitable harbour on the coast of Veragua, which
harbour, as they entered it on the day of the Epiphany (January 9, 1503),
they named Belem or Bethlehem. The river in the mouth of which they were
anchored, however, was subject to sudden spouts and gushes of water from
the hills, one of which occurred on January 24th and nearly swamped the
caravels. This spout of water was caused by the rainy season, which had
begun in the mountains and presently came down to the coast, where it
rained continuously until the 14th of February. They had made friends
with the Quibian or chief of the country, and he had offered to conduct
them to the place where the gold mines were; so Bartholomew was sent off
in the rain with a boat party to find this territory. It turned out
afterwards that the cunning Quibian had taken them out of his own country
and showed them the gold mined of a neighbouring chief, which were not so
rich as his own.

Columbus, left idle in the absence of Bartholomew, listening to the
continuous drip and patter of the rain on the leaves and the water,
begins to dream again--to dream of gold and geography. Remembers that
David left three thousand quintals of gold from the Indies to Solomon for
the decoration of the Temple; remembers that Josephus said it came from
the Golden Chersonesus; decides that enough gold could never have been