whence it was said the sun and moon issued forth to take their places in the sky. The vault was so fair and regular, that it appeared a work of art rather than of nature. In the time of Charlevoix the figures of various Zemes were still to be seen cut in the rocks, and there were the remains of niches, as if to receive statues. This cavern was held in great veneration. It was painted, and adorned with green branches, and other simple decorations. There were in it two images or Zemes. When there was a want of rain, the natives made pilgrimages and processions to it, with songs and dances, bearing offerings of fruits and flowers.*

They believed that mankind issued from another cavern, the large men from a great aperture, the small men from a little cranny. They were for a long time destitute of women, but wandering on one occasion near a small lake, they saw certain animals among the branches of the trees, which proved to be women. On attempting to catch them, however, they were found to be as slippery as eels, so that it was impossible to hold them. At length they employed certain men, whose hands were rendered rough by a kind of leprosy. These succeeded in securing four of these slippery females, from whom the world was peopled.

While the men inhabited this cavern, they dared only venture forth at night, for the sight of the sun was fatal to them, turning them into trees and stones. A cacique, named Vagoniona, sent one of his men forth from the cave to fish, who lingering at his sport until the sun had risen, was turned into a bird of melodious note, the same which Columbus mistook for the nightingale. They added, that yearly about the time he had suffered this transformation, he came in the night with a mournful song, bewailing his misfortune; which was the cause why that bird always sang in the night season.†

Like most savage nations, they had a tradition concerning the universal deluge, equally fanciful with most of the preceding; for it is singular how the human mind, in its natural state, is apt to account, by trivial and familiar causes, for great events. They said that there once lived in the island a mighty cacique, who slew his only son for conspiring against him. He afterward collected and picked his bones, and preserved them in a gourd, as was the custom of the natives with the relics of their friends. On a subsequent day, the cacique and his wife opened the gourd to contemplate the bones of their son, when, to their astonishment, several fish, great and small, leaped out. Upon this the cacique closed the gourd, and placed it on the top of his house, boasting that he had the sea shut up within it, and could have fish whenever he pleased. Four brothers, however, who had been born at the same birth, and were curious intermeddlers, hearing of this gourd, came during the absence of the cacique to peep into it. In their carelessness they suffered it to fall upon the ground, where it was dashed to pieces; when, lo! to their astonishment and dismay, there issued forth a mighty flood, with dolphins, and sharks, and tumbling porpoises, and great spouting whales; and the water spread, until it overflowed the earth, and formed the ocean, leaving only the tops of the mountains uncovered, which are the present islands.‡

* Charlevoix, Hist. de St. Domingo, lib. i. p. 60. Fray Roman. Hist. del Almirante. P. Martyr, decad. i. lib. ix.

Escritura de Fray Roman, pobre Heremito.

They had singular modes of treating the dying and the dead. When the life of a cacique was despaired of, they strangled him out of a principle of respect, rather than suffer him to die like the vulgar. Common people were extended in their hammocks, bread and water placed at their head, and they were then abandoned to die in solitude. Sometimes they were carried to the cacique, and if he permitted them the distinction, they were strangled. After death the body of a cacique was opened, dried at a fire, and preserved; of others the head only was treasured up as a memorial, or occasionally a limb. Sometimes the whole body was interred in a cave, with a calabash of water and a loaf of bread; sometimes it was consumed with fire in the house of the deceased.

They had confused and uncertain notions of the existence of the soul when separated from the body. They believed in the apparitions of the departed at night, or by daylight in solitary places, to lonely individuals; sometimes advancing as if to attack them, but upon the traveller's striking at them they vanished, and he struck merely against trees or rocks. Sometimes they mingled among the living, and were only to be known by having no navels. The Indians, fearful

of meeting with these apparitions, disliked to go about alone, and in the dark.

They had an idea of a place of reward, to which the spirits of good men repaired after death, where they were reunited to the spirits of those they had most loved during life, and to all their ancestors. Here they enjoyed uninterruptedly, and in perfection, those pleasures which constituted their felicity on earth. They lived in shady and blooming bowers, with beautiful women, and banqueted on delicious fruits. The paradise of these happy spirits was variously placed, almost every tribe assigning some favorite spot in their native province. Many, however, concurred in describing this region as being near a lake in the western part of the island, in the beautiful province of Xaragua. Here there were delightful valleys, covered with a delicate fruit called the mamey, about the size of an apricot. They imagined that the souls of the deceased remained concealed among the airy and inaccessible cliffs of the mountains during the day, but descended at night into these happy valleys, to regale on this consecrated fruit. The living were sparing, therefore, in eating it, lest the souls of their friends should suffer from want of their favorite nourishment.*

The dances to which the natives seemed so immoderately addicted, and which had been at first considered by the Spaniards, mere idle pastimes, were found to be often ceremonials of a serious and mystic character. They form indeed a singular and important feature throughout the customs of the aboriginals of the New World. In these are typefied, by signs well understood by the initiated, and, as it were, by hieroglyphic action, their historical events, their projected enterprises, their hunting, their ambuscades, and their battles, resembling in some respects the Pyrrhic dances of the ancients. Speaking of the prevalence of these dances among the natives of Hayti, Peter Martyr observes that they performed them to the chant of certain metres and ballads, handed down from generation to generation, in which were rehearsed the deeds of their ancestors. "These rhymes or ballads," he adds, they call areytos; and as our minstrels are accustomed to sing to the harp

44

* Hist. del Almirante, cap. 61. Peter Martyr, decad. i. lib. ix. Charlevoix, Hist. St. Domingo, lib. i.

and lute, so do they in like manner sing these songs, and dance to the same, playing on timbrels made of shells of certain fishes. These timbrels they call maguey. They have also songs and ballads of love, and others of lamentation or mourning; some also to encourage them to the wars, all sung to tunes agreeable to the matter." It was for these dances, as has been already observed, that they were so eager to procure hawks' bells, suspending them about their persons, and keeping time with their sound to the cadence of the singers. This mode of dancing to a ballad has been compared to the dances of the peasants in Flanders during the summer, and to those prevalent throughout Spain to the sound of the castinets, and the wild popular chants said to be derived from the Moors; but which, in fact, existed before their invasion, among the Goths who overran the peninsula.*

The earliest history of almost all nations has generally been preserved by rude heroic rhymes and ballads, and by the lays of the minstrels; and such was the case with the areytos of the Indians. "When a cacique died," says Oviedo, "they Isang in dirges his life and actions, and all the good that he had done was recollected. Thus they formed the ballads or areytos which constituted their history." Some of these ballads were of a sacred character, containing their traditional notions of theology, and the superstitions and fables which comprised their religious creeds. None were permitted to sing these but the sons of caciques, who were instructed in them by their Butios. They were chanted before the people on solemn festivals, like those already described, accompanied by the sound of a kind of drum, made from a hollow tree.

Such a are few of the characteristics remaining on record of these simple people, who perished 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 in 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 yuca 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 temporary 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 in

activity, under the shade of their trees, or amusing themselves occasionally with various games and dances.

In fact, they were destitute of powerful motives 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 the 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.""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."*

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 toward Columbus and his followers during their 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 gorge 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 THE COLONY,

[1494.]

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

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

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 already began to form their clusters. On the 30th of March a husbandman brought to Columbus ears of wheat which had been sown in the latter part of January. The smaller kind of garden herbs came to maturity in sixteen days, and the larger kind, such as melons, gourds, pompions, and cucumbers, were fit for the table within a month after the seed had been put into the ground. The soil, moistened by brooks and rivers and frequent showers, and stimulated by an ardent sun, possessed those principles of quick and prodigal fecundity which surprise the stranger, accustomed to less vigorous climates.

The admiral had scarcely returned to Isabella when a messenger arrived from Pedro Margarite, the commander at fort St. Thomas, informing him that the Indians of the vicinity had manifested unfriendly feelings, abandoning their villages and shunning all intercourse with the white men ; and that Caonabo was assembling his warriors, and preparing to attack the fortress. The fact was, that the moment the admiral had departed, the Spaniards, no longer awed by his presence, had, as usual, listened only to their passions, and exasperated the natives by wresting from them their gold, and wronging them with respect to their women. Caonabo also had seen with impatience these detested intruders, planting their standard in the very midst of his mountains, and he knew that he had nothing to expect from them but vengeance.

The tidings from Margarite, however, caused but little solicitude in the mind of Columbus. From what he had seen of the Indians in the interior, he had no apprehensions from their hostility. He knew their weakness and their awe of white men, and above all, he confided in their terror of the horses, which they regarded as ferocious beasts of prey, obedient to the Spaniards, but ready to devour their enemies. He contented himself, therefore, with sending Margarite a reinforcement of twenty men, with a supply of provisions and ammunition, and detaching thirty men to open a road between the fortress and the port.

What gave Columbus real and deep anxiety was the sickness, the discontent, and dejection which continued to increase in the settlement. The same principles of heat and humidity which gave such fecundity to the fields were fatal to the people. The exhalations from undrained marshes, and a vast continuity of forest, and the action of a burning sun upon a reeking vegetable soil, produced intermittent fevers, and various other of the maladies so trying to European constitutions in the uncultivated countries of the tropics. Many of the Spaniards suffered also under the torments of a disease hitherto unknown to them, the scourge, as was supposed, of their licentious intercourse with the Indian females; but the origin of which, whether American or European, has been a subject of great dispute. Thus the greater part of the colonists were either confined by positive illness or reduced to great debility. The stock of medi

cines was soon exhausted; there was a lack of medical aid, and of the watchful attendance which is even more important than medicine to the sick. Every one who was well, was either engrossed by the public labors, or by his own wants or cares; having to perform all menial offices for himself, even to the cooking of his provisions. The public works, therefore, languished, and it was impossible to cultivate the soil in a sufficient degree to produce a supply of the fruits of the earth. Provisions began to fail, much of the stores brought from Europe had been wasted on board ship, or suffered to spoil through carelessness, and much had perished on shore from the warmth and humidity of the climate. It seemed impossible for the colonists to accommodate themselves to the food of the natives; and their infirm condition required the aliments to which they had been accustomed. To avert an absolute famine, therefore, it was necessary to put the people on a short allowance, even of the damaged and unhealthy provisions which remained. This immediately caused loud and factious murmurs, in which many of those in office, who ought to have supported Columbus in his measures for the common safety, took a leading part; among those was Father Boyle, a priest as turbulent as he was crafty. He had been irritated, it is said, by the rigid impartiality of Columbus, who, in enforcing his salutary measures, made no distinction of rank or persons, and put the friar and his household on a short allowance as well as the rest of the community.

This

In the midst of this general discontent, the bread began to grow scarce. The stock of flour was exhausted, and there was no mode of grinding corn but by the tedious and toilsome process of the hand-mill. It became necessary, therefore, to erect a mill immediately, and other works were required equally important to the welfare of the settlement. Many of the workmen, however, were ill, some feigning greater sickness than they really suffered; for there was a general disinclination to all kind of labor which was not to produce immediate wealth. In this emergency, Columbus put every healthy person in requisition; and as the cavaliers and gentlemen of rank required food as well as the lower orders, they were called upon to take their share in the common labor. was considered a cruel degradation by many youthful hidalgos of high blood and haughty spirit, and they refused to obey the summons. Columbus, however, was a strict disciplinarian, and felt the importance of making his authority respected. He resorted, therefore, to strong and compulsory measures, and enforced their obedience. was another cause of the deep and lasting hostilities that sprang up against him. It aroused the immediate indignation of every person of birth and rank in the colony, and drew upon him the resentment of several of the proud families of Spain. He was inveighed against as an arrogant and upstart foreigner, who, inflated with a sudden acquisition of power, and consulting only his own wealth and aggrandizement, was trampling upon the rights and dignities of Spanish gentlemen, and insulting the honor of the nation.

This

Columbus may have been too strict and indiscriminate in his regulations. There are cases in which even justice may become oppressive, and where the severity of the law should be tempered with indulgence. What was mere toilsome labor to a common man, became humiliation and disgrace when forced upon a Spanish cavalier. Many of these young men had come out, not in the pur

suit of wealth, but with romantic dreams inspired by his own representations; hoping, no doubt, to distinguish themselves by heroic achievements and chivalrous adventure, and to continue in the Indies the career of arms which they had commenced in the recent wars of Granada. Others had been brought up in soft, luxurious indulgence, in the midst of opulent families, and were little calculated for the rude perils of the seas, the fatigues of the land, and the hardships, the exposures, and deprivations which attend a new settlement in the wilderness. When they fell ill, their case soon became incurable. The ailments of the body were increased by sickness of the heart. They suffered under the irritation of wounded pride, and the morbid melancholy of disappointed hope; their sick-bed was destitute of all the tender care and soothing attention to which they had been accustomed; and they sank into the grave in all the sullenness of despair, cursing the day of their departure from their country.

The venerable Las Casas, and Herrera after him, record, with much solemnity, a popular belief current in the island at the time of his residence there, and connected with the untimely fate of these cavaliers.

In after years, when the seat of the colony was removed from Isabella on account of its unhealthy situation, the city fell to ruin, and was abandoned. Like all decayed and deserted places, it soon became an object of awe and superstition to the common people, and no one ventured to enter its gates. Those who passed near it, or hunted the wild swine which abounded in the neighborhood, declared they heard appalling voices issue from within its walls by night and day. The laborers became fearful, therefore, of cultivating the adjacent fields. The story went, adds Las Casas, that two Spaniards happened one day to wander among the ruined edifices of the place. On entering one of the solitary streets, they beheld two rows of men, evidently from their stately demeanor, hidalgos of noble blood, and cavaliers of the court. They were richly attired in the old Castilian mode, with rapiers by their sides, and broad travelling hats, such as were worn at the time. The two men were astonished to behold persons of their rank and appearance apparently inhabiting that desolate place, unknown to the people of the island. They saluted them, and inquired whence they came and when they had arrived. The cavaliers maintained a gloomy silence, but courteously returned the salutation by raising their hands to their sombreros or hats, in taking off which their heads came off also, and their bodies stood decapitated. The whole phantom assemblage then vanished. So great was the astonishment and horror of the beholders, that they had nearly fallen dead, and remained stupefied for several days.*

CHAPTER XII.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE SPANISH FORCES IN THE INTERIOR-PREPARATIONS FOR A VOYAGE TO

CUBA.

[1494.]

THE increasing discontents of the motley population of Isabella and the rapid consumption of the scanty stores which remained, were causes of great anxiety to Columbus. He was desirous of proceeding on another voyage of discovery, but it was indispensable, before sailing, to place the affairs of the island in such a state as to secure tranquillity. He determined, therefore, to send all the men that could be spared from Isabella, into the interior; with orders to visit the territories of the different caciques, and explore the island. By this means they would be roused and animated; they would become accustomed to the climate and to the diet of the natives, and such a force would be displayed as to overawe the machinations of Caonabo or any other hostile cacique. In pursuance of this plan, every healthy person, not absolutely necessary to the concerns of the city or the care of the sick, was put under arms, and a little army mustered, consisting of two hundred and fifty cross-bow men, one hundred and ten arquebusiers, sixteen horsemen, and twenty officers. The general command of the forces was intrusted to Pedro Margarite, in whom Columbus had great confidence as a noble Catalonian, and a knight of the order of Santiago. Alonso de Ojeda was to conduct the army to the fortress of St. Thomas, where he was to succeed Margarite in the command; and the latter was to proceed with the main body of the troops on a military tour, in which he was particularly to explore the province of Cibao, and subsequently the other parts of the island.

Columbus wrote a long and earnest letter of instructions to Margarite, by which to govern himself in a service requiring such great circumspection. He charged him above all things to observe the greatest justice and discretion in respect to the Indians, protecting them from all wrong and insult, and treating them in such a manner as to secure their confidence and friendship. At the same time they were to be made to respect the property of the white men, and all thefts were to be severely punished. Whatever provisions were required from them for the subsistence of the army, were to be fairly purchased by persons whom the admiral appointed for that purpose; the purchases were to be made in the presence of the agent of the comptroller. If the Indians refused to sell the necessary provisions, then Margarite was to interfere and compel them to do so, acting, however, with all possible gentleness, and soothing them by kindness and caresses. No traffic was to be allowed between individuals and the natives, it being displeasing to the sovereigns and injurious to the service; and it was always to be kept in mind that their majesties were more desirous of the conversion of the natives than of any riches to be derived from them.

A strict discipline was to be maintained in the army, all breach of orders to be severely punished,' the men to be kept together and not suffered to wander from the main body, either singly or in small parties, lest they should be cut off by the natives; for though these people were pusillanimous, there were no people so apt to be perfidious and cruel as cowards.*

* Letter of Columbus. Navarrete, Colec., tom. ii. Document No. 72.