by hamlets and scattered
habitations. In a word, the softness and purity of the climate, and
the verdure, freshness, and sweetness of the country, appeared to
equal the delights of early spring in the beautiful province of
Valencia in Spain.

He found the island peopled by a race of Indians with fairer
complexions than any he had hitherto seen; 'people all of good
stature, well made, and of very graceful bearing, with much and
smooth hair.' They wore, the chiefs at least, tunics of coloured
cotton, and on their heads beautiful worked handkerchiefs, which
looked in the distance as if they were made of silk. The women,
meanwhile, according to the report of Columbus's son, seem, some of
them at least, to have gone utterly without clothing.

They carried square bucklers, the first Columbus had seen in the New
World; and bows and arrows, with which they made feeble efforts to
drive off the Spaniards who landed at Punta Arenal, near Icacque,
and who, finding no streams, sank holes in the sand, and so filled
their casks with fresh water, as may be done, it is said, at the
same spot even now.

And there--the source of endless misery to these happy harmless
creatures--a certain Cacique, so goes the tale, took off Columbus's
cap of crimson velvet, and replaced it with a circle of gold which
he wore.

Alas for them! That fatal present of gold brought down on them
enemies far more ruthless than the Caribs of the northern islands,
who had a habit of coming down in their canoes and carrying off the
gentle Arrawaks to eat them at their leisure, after the fashion
which Defoe, always accurate, has immortalised in Robinson Crusoe.
Crusoe's island is, almost certainly, meant for Tobago; Man Friday
had been stolen in Trinidad.

Columbus came no more to Trinidad. But the Spaniards had got into
their wicked heads that there must be gold somewhere in the island;
and they came again and again. Gold they could not get; for it does
not exist in Trinidad. But slaves they could get; and the history
of the Indians of Trinidad for the next century is the same as that
of the rest of the West Indies: a history of mere rapine and
cruelty. The Arrawaks, to do them justice, defended themselves more
valiantly than the still gentler people of Hayti, Cuba, Jamaica,
Porto Rico, and the Lucayas: but not so valiantly as the fierce
cannibal Caribs of the Lesser Antilles, whom the Spaniards were
never able to