ng wore incessant; the waterspouts (the first they
had seen) threatened to engulph them; huge crests of waves burst in
phosphorescent floods over them; and their escape, if we consider the
smallness of the caravels, and the force of a tropical cyclone, was little
less than miraculous. At last, after eight days' tossing to and fro, the
admiral gained the mouth of a river, which he named the Bethlehem, because
he entered it on the day of the Epiphany.

A SETTLEMENT FORMED.

In this neighbourhood there was a powerful cacique, named Quibia, whose
territory contained much gold, and with whom, therefore, the Spaniards
were anxious to treat. But he outwitted them. Offering to supply them with
guides to conduct them to his gold mines, he really sent them, not to his
own mines, but to those of a rival cacique, of Urira. Here, however, they
succeeded in acquiring, by barter and by actual discovery, large
quantities of the precious metal, which seemed to be so abundant, that the
admiral made sure that he had come to the very Aurea Chersonesus from
which Solomon had obtained the gold for the temple at Jerusalem. He had
seen more signs of gold here in two days, he said, than he had seen in St.
Domingo in four years. His first step was to form a settlement to provide
a depot for the gold which might be collected. A convenient site was found
near the mouth of the river Bethlehem, and by the end of March the
Adelantado had built a village of huts, in which it was proposed that he
should remain, with about eighty followers, while Columbus returned to
Spain for supplies.

ATTACK BY INDIANS.

But rumours soon reached the Adelantado of a projected attack on the
settlement by the natives, and he took measures to seize Quibia in his own
palace. The Indians, dismayed at the capture of their cacique, offered
large quantities of gold for his ransom, but the Adelantado preferred to
keep him as a hostage for peace. However, as he was being conveyed down
the river, on board one of the boats, he managed, although bound hand and
foot, and in the custody of one of the most powerful of the Spaniards, to
spring overboard and to make his escape, swimming under water to the
shore. Henceforward, as might have been expected, there was war to the
knife between the natives and the settlers. An attempt was made to burn
down the village by means of blazing arrows. A boat's crew of eleven
Spaniards, who had proceeded some distance up the river, were