forehead, their hair falling upon their shoulders. They were beautifully
proportioned; their skin smooth and delicate, and their complexion of a
clear agreeable brown. According to old Peter Martyr, the Spaniards, when
they beheld them issuing forth from their green woods, almost imagined
they beheld the fabled dryads, or native nymphs and fairies of the
fountains, sung by the ancient poets. [5] When they came before Don
Bartholomew, they knelt and gracefully presented him the green branches.
After these came the female cacique Anacaona, reclining on a kind of light
litter borne by six Indians. Like the other females, she had no other
covering than an apron of various-colored cotton. She wore round her head
a fragrant garland of red and white flowers, and wreaths of the same round
her neck and arms. She received the Adelantado and his followers with that
natural grace and courtesy for which she was celebrated; manifesting no
hostility towards them for the fate her husband had experienced at their
hands.

The Adelantado and his officers were conducted to the house of Behechio,
where a banquet was served up of utias, a great variety of sea and river
fish, with roots and fruits of excellent quality. Here first the Spaniards
conquered their repugnance to the guana, the favorite delicacy of the
Indians, but which the former had regarded with disgust, as a species of
serpent. The Adelantado, willing to accustom himself to the usages of the
country, was the first to taste this animal, being kindly pressed thereto
by Anacaona. His followers imitated his example; they found it to be
highly palatable and delicate; and from that time forward, the guana was
held in repute among Spanish epicures. [6]

The banquet being over, Don Bartholomew with six of his principal
cavaliers were lodged in the dwelling of Behechio; the rest were
distributed in the houses of the inferior caciques, where they slept in