success and triumph the first voyage of Columbus to
the "New World."

ALONSO DE OJEDA AND THE CARIB CACIQUE.

Of the three ships with which Columbus made his first voyage, the "Pinta"
deserted the others and went off on a voyage of discovery of its own, and
the "Santa Maria," the flag-ship of the admiral, ran ashore on the coast
of Hispaniola and proved a hopeless wreck. Only the little "Nina" (the
"girl," as this word means in English) was left to carry the discoverer
home. The "Santa Maria" was carefully taken to pieces, and from her
timbers was constructed a small but strong fort, with a deep vault beneath
and a ditch surrounding. Friendly Indians aided in this, and not a shred
of the stranded vessel was left to the waves. As the "Nina" was too small
to carry all his crew back to Spain, Columbus decided to leave a garrison
to hold this fort and search for gold until he should return. That the
island held plenty of gold he felt sure. So Captain Ardua was left, with a
garrison of forty men, and the "Nina" spread her sails to the winds to
carry to Spain the wonderful news of the great discovery.

La Navidad, or The Nativity, he named the fort, in remembrance of the day
of the wreck, and when he came back in 1493 he hopefully expected to find
its garrison awaiting him, with a rich treasure in the precious yellow
metal. He reached the spot to find the fort a ruin and the garrison a
remembrance only. They had been attacked by the Indians and massacred
during the absence of the admiral.

In fact, the mild, gentle, and friendly Indians whom Columbus had met with
on his first voyage were not the only people of the islands. There were on
some of the West Indies a warlike race called Caribs,--cannibals, the
Spaniards said they were,--who gave the invaders no small trouble before
they were overcome.

It was a band of these fierce Caribs that had attacked La Navidad and
destroyed the fort and its garrison, impelled to this, likely enough, by
some of the ruthless acts which the Spaniards were much too ready to
commit. The leader of these warriors was a bold cacique named Caonabo,
chief of a warlike mountain tribe. It is with this chieftain that we are
at present concerned, as he was the hero, or victim rather, of the first
romantic story known to us in Indian life.

In addition to the forts built by the Spaniards on the coast of
Hispaniola, there was one built far in the interior, called Fort Santo
Tomas. This sto