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ished from the face of the earth before their customs and creeds were thought of sufficient importance to be investigated. The present work does not profess to enter into detailed accounts of the countries and people discovered by Columbus, otherwise than as they may be useful for the illustration of his history; and perhaps the foregoing are carried to an unnecessary length, but they may serve to give greater interest to the subsequent transactions of the island.

Many of these particulars, as has been observed, were collected by the Admiral and his officers, during their excursion among the mountains and their sojourn to the plain. The natives appeared to them a singularly idle and improvident race, indifferent to most of the objects of human anxiety and toil. They were impatient of all kinds of labor, scarcely giving themselves the trouble to cultivate the yucca root, the maize, and the potato, which formed the main articles of subsistence. For the rest, their streams abounded with fish; they caught the utia or coney, the guana, and various birds; and they had a perpetual banquet from the fruits spontaneously produced by their groves. Though the air was sometimes cold among the mountains, yet they preferred submitting to a little tem

VOL. II. 10

porary suffering, rather than take the trouble to weave garments from the gossampine cotton which abounded in their forests. Thus they loitered away existence in vacant inactivity, under the shade of their trees, or amusing themselves occasionally with various games and dances.

In fact they were destitute of powerful motive to toil, being free from most of those wants which doom mankind in civilized life, or in less genial climes, to incessant labor. They had no sterile winter to provide against, particularly in the valleys and plains, where, according to Peter Martyr, "the island enjoyed perpetual spring-time, and was blessed with continual summer and harvest. The trees preserved their leaves throughout the year, and the meadows continued always green."

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"There is no province, nor any region," he again observes, which is not remarkable for the majesty of its mountains, the fruitfulness of its vales, the pleasantness of its hills, and delightful plains, with abundance of fair rivers running through them. There never was any noisome animal found in it, nor yet any ravening four-footed beast; no lion, nor bear; no fierce tigers, nor crafty foxes, nor devouring wolves, but all things blessed and fortunate."*

* Peter Martyr, decad. iii., lib. ix., translated by R. Eden. London, 1555.

In the soft region of the Vega, the circling seasons brought each its store of fruits; and while some were gathered in full maturity, others were ripening on the boughs, and buds and blossoms gave promise of still future abundance. What need was there of garnering up and anxiously providing for coming days, to men who lived in a perpetual harvest? What need, too, of toilfully spinning or laboring at the loom, where a genial temperature prevailed throughout the year, and neither nature nor custom prescribed the necessity of clothing?

The hospitality which characterizes men in such a simple and easy mode of existence, was evinced towards Columbus and his followers during his sojourn in the Vega. Wherever they went it was a continual scene of festivity and rejoicing. The natives hastened from all parts, bearing presents, and laying the treasures of their groves and streams and mountains at the feet of beings whom they still considered as descended from the skies to bring blessings to their island.

Having accomplished the purposes of his residence in the Vega, Columbus, at the end of a few days, took leave of its hospitable inhabitants, and resumed his march for the harbor, returning with his little army through

the lofty and rugged gore of the mountains called the Pass of the Hidalgos. As we accompany him in imagination over the rocky height, whence the Vega first broke upon the eye of the Europeans, we cannot help pausing to cast back a look of mingled pity and admiration over this beautiful but devoted region. The dream of natural liberty, of ignorant content, and loitering idleness, was as yet unbroken, but the fiat had gone forth; the white man had penetrated into the land; avarice, and pride, and ambition, and pining care, and sordid labor, and withering poverty, were soon to follow, and the indolent paradise of the Indian was about to disappear forever.

Chapter XI.

ARRIVAL OF COLUMBUS AT ISABELLA-SICKNESS OF

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THE COLONY.

[1494.]

N the 29th of March Columbus arrived at Isabella, highly satisfied with his expedition into the interior.

The appearance of everything in the vicinity of the harbor was calculated to increase his anticipations of prosperity. The plants and fruits of the Old World, which he was endeavoring to introduce into the island, gave promise of rapid increase. The orchards, fields, and gardens, were in a great state of forwardness. The seeds of various fruits had produced young plants; the sugar-cane had prospered exceedingly; a native vine, trimmed and dressed with care, had yielded grapes of tolerable flavor, and cuttings from European vines had already begun to form their clusters. On the 30th of March a husbandman brought

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