eligion. They
were taller and handsomer than the inhabitants of the other islands, and
the women much fairer; indeed, if they had not been so much exposed to
the sun, and if they could only be clothed in the decent garments of
civilisation, the Admiral thought that their skins would be as white as
those of the women of Spain--which was only another argument for bringing
them within the fold of the Holy Catholic Church. The men were powerful
and apparently harmless; they showed no truculent or suspicious spirit;
they had no knowledge of arms; a thousand of them would not face three
Christians; and

"so they are suitable to be governed and made to work and sow and do
everything else that shall be necessary, and to build villages and
be taught to wear clothing and observe our customs."

At present, you see, they are but poor happy heathens, living in a
paradise of their own, where the little birds sing all through the warm
nights, and the rivers murmur through flowery meadows, and no one has any
knowledge of arms or desire of such knowledge, and every one goes naked
and unashamed. High time, indeed, that they should be taught to wear
clothing and observe our customs.

The local chief came on a visit of state to the ship; and the Admiral
paid him due honour, telling him that he came as an envoy from the
greatest sovereigns in the world. But this charming king, or cacique as
they called him, would not believe this; he thought that Columbus was,
for reasons of modesty, speaking less than the truth--a new charge to
bring against our Christopher! He believed that the Spaniards came from
heaven, and that the realms of the sovereigns of Castile were in the
heavens and not in this world. He took some refreshment, as his
councillors did also, little dreaming, poor wretches, what in after years
was to come to them through all this palavering and exchanging of
presents. The immediate result of the interview, however, was to make
intercourse with the natives much freer and pleasanter even than it had
been before; and some of the sailors went fishing with the natives.
It was then that they were shown some cane arrows with hardened points,
which the natives said belonged to the people of 'Caniba', who, they
alleged, came to the island to capture and eat the natives. The Admiral
did not believe it; his sublime habit of rejecting everything that did
not fit in with his theory of the moment, and accepting everyth