CHARACTER OF THE INDIANS.

Then Columbus goes on to say that these Indians were well made, with very
good countenances, but hair like horsehair, their colour yellow; and that
they painted themselves. They neither carried arms, nor understood such
things, for when he showed them swords, they took hold of them by the
blade, and hurt themselves. Their darts were without iron; but some had a
fish's tooth at the end. In concluding his description, he says, "they
ought to make faithful servants, and of good understanding, for I see that
very quickly they repeat all that is said to them, and I believe they
would easily be converted to Christianity, for it appeared to me that they
had no creed."


THEIR HOUSES AND IMPLEMENTS.

A little further on, the admiral says of the people of a neighbouring
island, that they were more domestic and tractable than those of San
Salvador, and more intelligent, too, as he saw in their way of reckoning
for the payment of the cotton they brought to the ships. At the mouth of
the Rio de Mares, some of the admiral's men, whom he had sent to
reconnoitre, brought him word that the houses of the natives were the best
they had seen. They were made, he says, like "Alfaneques (pavilions), very
large, and appeared as royal tents without an arrangement of streets,
except one here and there, and within they were very clean, and well
swept, and their furniture very well arranged. All these houses were made
of palm branches, and were very beautiful. Our men found in these houses
many statues of women, and several heads fashioned like masks, and very
well wrought. I do not know, he adds, whether they have these for the love
of the beautiful, or for purposes of worship." The Spaniards found also