cannibals ate them piecemeal; he had no use for such information. His
mind was like a sieve of which the size of the meshes could be adjusted
at will; everything that was not germane to the idea of the moment fell
through it, and only confirmative evidence remained; and at the moment he
was not believing any stories which did not prove that the Great Khan
was, so to speak, just round the corner. If they talked about gold he
would listen to them; and so the cacique brought him a piece of gold the
size of his hand and, breaking it into pieces, gave it to him a bit at a
time. This the Admiral took to be sign of great intelligence. They told
him there was gold at Tortuga, but he preferred to believe that it came
from Babeque, which may have been Jamaica and may have been nothing at
all.

But his theory was that it existed on Espanola only in small pieces
because that country was so rich that the natives had no need for it;
an economic theory which one grows dizzy in pondering. At any rate
"the Admiral believed that he was very near the fountainhead, and that
Our Lord was about to show him where the gold originates."

On Tuesday, December 18th, the ships were all dressed in honour of a
religious anniversary, and the cacique, hearing the firing of the
lombards with which the festival was greeted, came down to the shore to
see what was the matter. As Columbus was sitting at dinner on deck
beneath the poop the cacique arrived with all his people; and the account
of his visit is preserved in Columbus's own words.

"As he entered the ship he found that I was eating at the table
below the stern forecastle, and he came quickly to seat himself
beside me, and would not allow me to go to meet him or get up from
the table, but only that I should eat. I thought that he would like