behalf, had also been wounded and been obliged to retire. The natives
offered to go and fetch Guacanagari himself, and departed with that
object.

In the greatest anxiety the Admiral and his company passed that day and
night waiting for the King to come. Early the next morning Columbus
himself went ashore and visited the spot where the settlement had been.
There he found destruction whole and complete, with nothing but a few
rags of clothing as an evidence that the place had ever been inhabited by
human beings. As Guacanagari did not appear some of the Spaniards began
to suspect that he had had a hand in the matter, and proposed immediate
reprisal; but Columbus, believing still in the man who had "loved him so
much that it was wonderful" did not take this view, and his belief in
Guacanagari's loyalty was confirmed by the discovery that his own
dwelling had also been burned down.

Columbus set some of his party searching in the ditch of the fort in case
any treasure should have been buried there, as he had ordered it should
be in event of danger, and while this was going on he walked along the
coast for a few miles to visit a spot which he thought might be suitable
for the new settlement. At a distance of a mile or two he found a
village of seven or eight huts from which the inhabitants fled at his
approach, carrying such of their goods as were portable, and leaving the
rest hidden in the grass. Here were found several things that had
belonged to the Spaniards and which were not likely to have been
bartered; new Moorish mantles, stockings, bolts of cloth, and one of the
Admiral's lost anchors; other articles also, among them a dead man's head
wrapped up with great care in a small basket. Shaking their own living
heads, Columbus and his party returned. Suddenly they came on some
suspicious-looking mounds of earth over which new grass was growing. An