They wore as ornaments small plates of gold and pearls of considerable
value, which they willingly exchanged for European toys. They seemed to
possess greater courage and better understandings than the inhabitants
of the islands.

The country produced four-footed animals of several kinds, as well as a
great variety of fowls and fruits.

The admiral was so much delighted with its beauty and fertility, that,
with the warm enthusiasm of a discoverer, he imagined it to be the
Paradise described in Scripture.

Thus Columbus had the glory of discovering the new world, and of
conducting the Spaniards to that vast continent which has been the seat
of their empire and the source of their treasure, in that quarter of the
globe. The shattered condition of his ships and the scarcity of
provisions, made it now necessary to bear away for Hispaniola, where he
arrived wasted to an extreme degree with fatigue and sickness.

Many revolutions had happened in that country during his absence, which
had lasted more than two years.

His brother, whom he had left in command, had, in compliance with advice
which he had given him before his departure, removed the colony from
Isabella to a more commodious station on the opposite side of the
island, and laid the foundation of St. Domingo, which long continued to
be the most considerable town in the new world.

Such was the cruelty and oppression with which the Spaniards treated the
Indians, and so intolerable the burden imposed upon them, that they at