and an armed party sent ashore in a boat, and the natives were soon put
to flight. There was no renewal of hostilities; the next day the local
cacique came down offering provisions and help; presents were exchanged,
and cordial relations established. Columbus noticed that the Jamaicans
seemed to be a much more virile community than either the Cubans or the
people of Espanola. They had enormous canoes hollowed out of single
mahogany trees, some of them 96 feet long and 8 feet broad, which they
handled with the greatest ease and dexterity; they had a merry way with
them too, were quick of apprehension and clever at expressing their
meaning, and in their domestic utensils and implements they showed an
advance in civilisation on the other islanders of the group. Columbus
did some trade with the islanders as he sailed along the coast, but he
does not seem to have believed much in the gold story, for after sailing
to the western point of the island he bore away to the north again and
sighted the coast of Cuba on the 18th of May.


The reason why Columbus kept returning to the coast of Cuba was that he
believed it to be the mainland of Asia. The unlettered natives, who had
never read Marco Polo, told him that it was an island, although no man
had ever seen the end of it; but Columbus did not believe them, and
sailed westward in the belief that he would presently come upon the
country and city of Cathay. Soon he found himself in the wonderful
labyrinth of islets and sandbanks off the south coast; and because of the
wonderful colours of their flowers and climbing plants he called them
Jardin de la Reina or Queen's Garden. Dangerous as the navigation
through these islands was, he preferred to risk the shoals and sandbanks
rather than round them out at sea to the southward, for he believed them
to be the islands which, according to Marco Polo, lay in masses along the
coast of Cathay. In this adventure he had a very hard time of it; the