nights, and the rivers murmur through flowery meadows, and no one has any
knowledge of arms or desire of such knowledge, and every one goes naked
and unashamed. High time, indeed, that they should be taught to wear
clothing and observe our customs.


The local chief came on a visit of state to the ship; and the Admiral
paid him due honour, telling him that he came as an envoy from the
greatest sovereigns in the world. But this charming king, or cacique as
they called him, would not believe this; he thought that Columbus was,
for reasons of modesty, speaking less than the truth--a new charge to
bring against our Christopher! He believed that the Spaniards came from
heaven, and that the realms of the sovereigns of Castile were in the
heavens and not in this world. He took some refreshment, as his
councillors did also, little dreaming, poor wretches, what in after years
was to come to them through all this palavering and exchanging of
presents. The immediate result of the interview, however, was to make
intercourse with the natives much freer and pleasanter even than it had
been before; and some of the sailors went fishing with the natives.
It was then that they were shown some cane arrows with hardened points,
which the natives said belonged to the people of 'Caniba', who, they
alleged, came to the island to capture and eat the natives. The Admiral
did not believe it; his sublime habit of rejecting everything that did
not fit in with his theory of the moment, and accepting everything that
did, made him shake his head when this piece of news was brought to him.
He could not get the Great Khan out of his head, and his present theory
was that this island, being close to the mainland of Cathay, was visited
by the armies of the Great Khan, and that it was his men who had used the
arrows and made war upon the natives. It was no good for the natives to
show him some of their mutilated bodies, and to tell him that the