water, instead of lowering it, assuring the crews that they
would be ashore in a day or two. On Saturday evening, November 2nd,
although no land was in sight, Columbus was so sure of his position that
he ordered the fleet to take in sail and go on slowly until morning. As
the Sunday dawned and the sky to the west was cleared of the morning bank
of clouds the look-out on the Marigalante reported land ahead; and sure
enough the first sunlight of that day showed them a green and verdant
island a few leagues away.

As they approached it Columbus christened it Dominica in honour of the
day on which it was discovered. He sailed round it; but as there was no
harbour, and as another island was in sight to the north, he sailed on in
that direction. This little island he christened Marigalante; and going
ashore with his retinue he hoisted the royal banner, and formally took
possession of the whole group of six islands which were visible from the
high ground. There were no inhabitants on the island, but the voyagers
spent some hours wandering about its tangled woods and smelling the rich
odours of spice, and tasting new and unfamiliar fruits. They next sailed
on to an island to the north which Columbus christened Guadaloupe as a
memorial of the shrine in Estremadura to which he had made a pious
pilgrimage. They landed on this island and remained a week there, in the
course of which they made some very remarkable discoveries.

The villagers were not altogether unfriendly, although they were shy at
first; but red caps and hawks' bells had their usual effect. There were
signs of warfare, in the shape of bone-tipped arrows; there were tame
parrots much larger than those of the northern islands; they found
pottery and rough wood carving, and the unmistakable stern timber of a
European vessel. But they discovered stranger things than that. They
found human skulls used as household utensils, and gruesome fragments of
human bodies, unmistakable remains of a feast; and they realised that at
last they were in the presence of a man-eating tribe. Later they came to
know, something of the habits of the islanders; how they made raiding
expeditions to the neighbouring islands, and carried off large numbers of
prisoners, retaining the women as concubines and eating the men. The
boys were mutilated and fattened like capons, being employed as labourers
until they had arrived at years of discretion, at which point they were
killed and ea