CHAPTER II.

PARLEY DESCRIBES THE INHABITANTS.


The poor inhabitants, a simple and innocent people, with copper-coloured
skins and long black hair, not curled, like the negroes, but floating on
their shoulders, or bound in tresses round their heads, came flocking
down to the beach and stood gazing in silent admiration.

The dress of the Spaniards, the whiteness of their skins, their beards,
their arms, and the vast machines that seemed to move upon the waters
with wings, which they supposed had, during the night, risen out of the
sea, or come down from the clouds; the sound and flash of the guns,
which they mistook for thunder and lightning: all these things appeared
to them strange and surprising; they considered the Spaniards as
children of the sun, and paid homage to them as gods.

The Europeans were hardly less amazed at the scene now before them.
Every herb, and shrub, and tree, differed from those which flourished in
Europe: the inhabitants appeared in the simple innocence of nature,
entirely naked; their features were singular, but not disagreeable, and
their manners gentle and timid.

[Illustration]

The first act of Columbus was to take solemn and formal possession of