the whole Pacific Ocean had been explored and mapped out. Columbus that
day started an electric current through the brain of every European
mariner. To discover something across the Atlantic was henceforth in the
very air, and the results were tremendous.

But to return to those happy Spanish sailors who on that October morn of
1492 at last planted their feet on _terra firma_. To explore the
little island did not take long. They found it to be full of green trees
and strange luscious fruits. There were no beasts, large or small, only
gay parrots. The natives, guiltless of clothing, were gentle creatures
who supposed their strange visitors had come from Heaven and reverenced
them accordingly. As the two groups stood looking at each other for the
first time, the natives must have been by far the more astonished.
Spanish eyes were used to races other than the white; they all knew the
brownish Moor; and alas, many of them knew the black Ethiopian too; for,
once the Portuguese started slave-snatching down the African coast, the
Spaniards became their customers, so that by this time, 1492, there were
a good many African slaves in Spain. But the Bahama natives knew of no
race but their own; so what could these undreamed-of visitors be but
divine? Here is Columbus's own description of what happened when the
white man and the red man had scraped acquaintance with each other:--

"As I saw that they were very friendly to us, and perceived that they
could be much more easily converted to our holy faith by gentle means
than by force, I presented them with some red caps and strings of beads
to wear upon the neck, and many other trifles of small value, wherewith
they were much delighted and became greatly attached to us. Afterwards
they came swimming to the boats, bringing parrots, balls of cotton
thread, javelins, and many other things which they exchanged for glass
beads and hawks' bells, which trade was carried on with the utmost good