existence. Those warlike and predacious Indians would not keep the
peace, nor would they allow other people to do so. Though they had
their capital in Guadaloupe, they extended their military enterprises
in every direction, and Cuba, Porto Rico, Hayti, Jamaica, and the
lesser islands suffered from their assaults. They were trained to
fight from childhood, and attained to great proficiency in arms. Being
active voyagers, they had some knowledge of astronomy. When operating
in the waters of a hostile country it was their custom to mask their
boats with palm leaves, for in this guise they stole upon the enemy the
easier. Like the red men of our plains, they painted their faces, and,
indeed, they retained many of the practices common to our tribes. In
their traditions they came from the North, like other strong races,
their old home being among the Alleghanies, and they conquered their
way from Florida to Brazil. Their tribe, they say, grew up from stones
that their remote ancestors had sowed in the soil. They buried their
dead in a sitting posture that they might be ready to leap up when
the spirit came for them, and they faced the sunrise that they might
see the day of resurrection the quicker.

In their mythology the first men came down from heaven on clouds to
purify the world and make it as clean as the moon; but, while they were
looking about at this untidy planet, the clouds floated back and they
were left in a sorry plight, for they had brought no provisions with
them. Their hunger having sharpened so as to become unbearable, they
scraped up clay and baked it to make it less tough and more eatable,
and were grieved when it came out of the fire as hard as stone. Then
the birds and beasts had pity on them, and led them to the groves and
fields where they could find fruit, nuts, maize, and yams. One tree
was of such size that they chopped it with stone axes for ten months
before it fell, and they ate all of it. Beneath its roots, in a cave,
lived the Water Mother, who, possibly because she was angered by the
destruction of the tree, released a flood that would have covered the
earth had not a rock fallen into the throat of the cavern and stopped
the flow. This rock had life and speech. It warned the new race that
when its founders should grow old they were to expect a deluge. Until
that appeared they should find in the atone their best adviser and
protector, and if they would pray to it, giving a deaf ear to the
wood