coast. The abundance of yams, Indian corn,
and various fruits, together with the plentifulness of wild cotton,
impressed the explorers most favorably. Their avarice and greed were
also stimulated by the belief that gold was to be found in large
quantities, having received enough to convince them of its actual
presence in the soil, but in the supposition that the precious metal
was to be found in what is termed paying quantities they were
mistaken.

The Spaniards were not a little surprised to see the natives using
rude pipes, in which they smoked a certain dried leaf with apparent
gratification. Tobacco was indigenous, and in the use of this now
universal narcotic, these simple savages indulged in at least one
luxury. The flora was strongly individualized. The frangipanni, tall
and almost leafless, with thick fleshy shoots, decked with a small
white blossom, was very fragrant and abundant; here also was the wild
passion-flower, in which the Spaniards thought they beheld the emblems
of our Saviour's passion. The golden-hued peta was found beside the
myriad-flowering oleander, while the undergrowth was braided with
cacti and aloes. The poisonous manchineel was observed, a drop of
whose milky juice will burn the flesh like vitriol. Here the invaders
also observed and noted the night-blooming cereus. They were delighted
by fruits of which they knew not the names, such as the custard-apple,
mango, zapota, banana, and others, growing in such rank luxuriance as
to seem miraculous. We can well conceive of the pleasure and surprise
of these adventurous strangers, when first partaking of these new and
delicate products. This was four hundred years ago, and to-day the
same flora and the same luscious food grow there in similar abundance.
Nature in this land of ceaseless summer puts forth strange eagerness,
ever running to fruits, flowers, and fragrance, as if they were
outlets for her exuberant fecundity.

The inoffensive, unsuspicious natives shared freely everything they
possessed with the invaders. Hospitality was with them an instinct,
fostered by nature all about them; besides which it was a considerable
time before they ceased to believe their guests superior beings
descended from the clouds in their winged vessels. The Indians lived
in villages of two or three hundred houses, built of wood and
palm-leaf, each dwelling containing several families, the whole of one
lineage, and all were governed by caciques or kings, the sp