ers embraced Columbus or kissed his
hands, while the sailors threw themselves at his feet, craving pardon
and favour.

[Sidenote: The astonished natives.]

[Sidenote: Guanahani: where was it?]

These proceedings were watched with unutterable amazement and awe by a
multitude of men, women, and children of cinnamon hue, different from
any kind of people the Spaniards had ever seen. All were stark naked and
most of them were more or less greased and painted. They thought that
the ships were sea-monsters and the white men supernatural creatures
descended from the sky.[518] At first they fled in terror as these
formidable beings came ashore, but presently, as they found themselves
unmolested, curiosity began to overcome fear, and they slowly approached
the Spaniards, stopping at every few paces to prostrate themselves in
adoration. After a time, as the Spaniards received them with encouraging
nods and smiles, they waxed bold enough to come close to the visitors
and pass their hands over them, doubtless to make sure that all this
marvel was a reality and not a mere vision. Experiences in Africa had
revealed the eagerness of barbarians to trade off their possessions for
trinkets, and now the Spaniards began exchanging glass beads and hawks'
bells for cotton yarn, tame parrots, and small gold ornaments. Some sort
of conversation in dumb show went on, and Columbus naturally interpreted
everything in such wise as to fit his theories. Whether the natives
understood him or not when he asked them where they got their gold, at
any rate they pointed to the south, and thus confirmed Columbus in his
suspicion that he had come to some island a little to the north of the
opulent Cipango. He soon found that it was a small island, and he
understood the name of it to be Guanahani. He took formal possession of
it for Castile, just as the discoverers of the Cape Verde islands and
the Guinea coasts had taken possession of those places for Portugal;
and he gave it a Christian name, San Salvador. That name has since the
seventeenth century been given to Cat island, but perhaps in pursuance
of a false theory of map-makers; it is not proved that Cat island is the
Guanahani of Columbus. All that can positively be asserted of Guanahani
is that it was one of the Bahamas: there has been endless discussion as
to which one, and the question is not easy to settle. Perhaps the theory
of Captain Gustavus Fox, of the United States navy, is on the whole bes