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the Indians; he tells their highnesses he sends therewith some cannibals as slaves, to be converted, and taught the Spanish language, that they may act as interpreters. He omits no argument that might tend to hide the venu of his proposition; he affirms that the Indians of the other islands will greatly rejoice at the capture of their enemies. But the sovereigns are not thus to be blinded, and to this paragraph, adverting to the proposed conversion of the Indians to the Christian faith, they affix this comment: "This is well, and so it must be done, but let the admiral see whether it could not be managed there, that they should be brought to our holy Catholic faith, and the same with the Indians of the islands where he is."

In the next paragraph, Columbus systematizes his project. After enlarging on the benefits which will accrue to the souls of these monstrous devourers of human flesh, by their enslavement, he shows that the islands being in need of cattle and other domestic animals, a regular system of barter might be established, and ships coming to the colony laden with oxen, mules, etc., might return to Spain with a cargo of human live-stock, always from the cannibal portion of the population.

"These cattle," he writes, "might be sold at moderate. prices, for the benefit of the bearers, and the latter might be paid with slaves taken from among the Caribs, who are a wild people, fit for any work; well proportioned, and very intelligent; and who, when they have got rid of the cruel habits to which they have become accustomed, will be better than any other slaves."

In his eagerness to show the value of this live-stock, he forgets, or is unaware that, in praising their intelligence, he furnishes a powerful argument against the truth of his imputation that they ate human flesh, for, wherever the disgusting practice has been found to exist, it has always been among human beings of the lowest order of intellect, scarce removed from brutes. "When they lose sight of their country," continues the admiral,

they will forget their cruel practices." This was evidently said in order that, when the gentle harmlessness of the poor slaves should surprise the Spaniards, they should believe they had only become thus gentle and harmless since they left their islandhomes. He further adds, as a tempting suggestion to the sovereigns: "Their highnesses might fix duties on the slaves that might be taken over, upon their arrival in Spain."

Never was the establishment of slavery more deliberately planned and proposed. Ferdinand and Isabella at once perceived the enormity of the proposition, and to this paragraph they answer: "As regards this matter it is suspended for the present, until there come some other way of doing it " (converting the heathen there), "and let the admiral write what he thinks of this." A comment which disappointed but did not discourage Columbus. He knew the character of his royal mistress too well not to be assured that, when the natives should prove to be the only means of procuring wealth in the islands, she would herself consider their enslavement necessary for the salvation of their souls; and, in effect, though she will never consent to their exportation, yet by her order of 1503 she will compel them to work, as slaves only are compelled.

But to return to Columbus. From the six women and boy he captured, he asked information as to his whereabouts; not, according to his son, that he did not know the exact situation of Hispaniola, but merely because he wanted to hear what they had to say about it. He was now anxious to leave Guadalupe, but, nine of the men having gone ashore without his permission, he sent Alonzo de Ojeda and forty men to seek them. These returned, after a fruitless search, with marvelous accounts of the vegetable productions they had seen; and moreover affirmed, according to Columbus, that in traversing six leagues they crossed twenty rivers, an exaggeration which is so apparent to Fernando that he seeks to palliate his father's statement by suggesting that they might have crossed the same river several times. The truants found their way back to the ship, and so greatly was our humane admiral incensed at their having lost their way, that he ordered them put in irons, and their allowance of food retrenched!

They now set sail, and passed several islands, where they found coral and other curious productions.. "Though the admiral," says his son, "was very desirous to know every thing, yet he resolved to hold on his course to Hispaniola; but, the weather being bad, he came to anchor on Thursday, the 13th of November, in an island, where he ordered some Indians to be taken, to know whereabouts he was."

He did not finally arrive at Hispaniola till the 21st of November; thus, notwithstanding his anxiety to visit his colony,

INDIANS CAPTURED TO DIRECT COLUMBUS.

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and his perfect knowledge of its situation, he was nearly a month from the time he arrived at San Domingo before he reached the same; he would not stop to examine the productions of the various islands, yet was continually stopping to capture Indians, of whom to inquire his latitude and longitude, of which, says the son, he was well aware. Such conduct would have been absurd. We will believe that Columbus was anxious to rejoin those he had left, but the means employed show him to have been totally ignorant of the location of the island.

With the assistance of the natives, he at length succeeded in reaching it. He found the fortress, which, he had assured the

INDIAN WIDOWS DECORATING THE GRAVES OF THEIR SLAUGHTERED HUSBANDS WITH THEIR HAIR.-(From De Bry's "America.")

sovereigns, was strong enough to keep the whole island in subjection, destroyed, and the entire colony massacred.

The good Guacanagari averred their destruction to be the work of a neighboring tribe, that of the powerful Cazique Caonabo; but he and all the Indians with one accord proclaimed the Spaniards to have made themselves objects of fear and hatred throughout the island by their insolence and licentiousness; they also reported them as having quarreled among themselves, and dispersed, plundering native villages in small bands, so that

their destruction was regarded as an act of self-defense by the Indians.

Thus ominously did the first colony of Spaniards in the Western Hemisphere inaugurate their relations with the natives. Their fate was a terrible one, a violent death in a far-off land, where cries for assistance could reach no friendly ear, and would only bring around them their enemies in greater numbers; enemies so numerous that their little band dissolved before them like snow beneath a summer sun. But, terrible as was their death, they had brought it upon themselves; their enemies were the once friendly natives, whom they cruelly wronged, and whe avenged the injuries heaped upon them by the stranger who invaded their homes, and made them desolate.

CHAPTER XVI.

SETTLEMENTS IN HISPANIOLA.

COLUMBUS was apparently not so much concerned at the loss of his men as he was eager to find the gold which he hoped they had collected. He had left orders that, in case they were attacked,

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.-(From De Bry's "America.")

they should throw all the treasure they might have amassed into a certain well. This was now carefully searched, but to no purpose-not a particle of gold was found. Columbus, being thor