Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/64

44 There was a fleet of seventeen vessels, laden with all that was needed for use and luxury and defence for a prosperous colony, with all sorts of seeds and plants, with domestic animals and poultry, and, above all, with mules and horses, the marvel and terror of the natives, realizing to them the fable of the Centaur.

Before visiting the colony which he had left at the fort, Columbus touched at Santa Cruz, one of the Antilles. Here he had a skirmish, blood being shed on both sides, with some of those Caribs, of whom he had heard such warning because of their courage, ferocity, and predatory rovings. More terrible yet was their repute as cannibals.

That beautiful island realm, which has borne successively the names of Hispaniola, St. Domingo, and Hayti, was to be the scene where disaster, sorrow, outrage, carnage, and every form and degree of oppression, cruelty, treachery, and atrocity were to introduce the tragic and revolting history, lengthened and crimsoned in the years to follow, of the relations between the Spaniards and the natives. The island in all that splendid archipelago, second in size only to Cuba, and richer and fairer than any other in the group, was estimated at its discovery, perhaps with some exaggeration, to have on its thirty thousand square miles a population of a million souls. Las Casas says the population had been 1,200,000. Though, as afterwards appeared, there had been feuds between the wilder mountain tribes and the more peaceful dwellers by the shores and in the valleys, all the chroniclers describe the natives as gentle and kindly, living an indolent, tranquil life, without care or labor, and presenting an image of Arcadian simplicity. The invaders afterwards learned that the island was divided into five districts, under the same number of caciques.

As has been said, the cacique or chieftain of the tribe in whose bounds the little colony with its citadel had been planted, had shown himself chivalrously courteous and friendly to the wrecked adventurers, and promised