them. And I believe
that they could easily be made Christians, for it seems to me that they
have no belief. I, if it please our Lord, will take six of them to your
Highnesses at the time of my departure, so that they may learn to
talk. No wild creature of any sort have I seen, except parrots, in this
island."

All these are the words of the Admiral, says Las Casas. The journal of
the next day is in these words:

Saturday, October 13. "As soon as the day broke, many of these men came
to the beach, all young, as I have said, and all of good stature, a very
handsome race. Their hair is not woolly, but straight and coarse, like
horse hair, and all with much wider foreheads and heads than any other
people I have seen up to this time. And their eyes are very fine and
not small, and they are not black at all, but of the color of the Canary
Islanders. And nothing else could be expected, since it is on one line
of latitude with the Island of Ferro, in the Canaries.

"They came to the ship with almadias,(*) which are made of the trunk
of a tree, like a long boat, and all of one piece--and made in a very
wonderful manner in the fashion of the country--and large enough for
some of them to hold forty or forty-five men. And others are smaller,
down to such as hold one man alone. They row with a shovel like a
baker's, and it goes wonderfully well. And if it overturns, immediately
they all go to swimming and they right it, and bale it with calabashes
which they carry.

(*) Arabic word for raft or float; here it means canoes.

"They brought skeins of spun cotton, and parrots, and javelins, and
other little things which it would be wearisome to write down, and they
gave everything for whatever was given to them.

"And I strove attentively to learn whether there were gold. And I saw
that some of them had a little piece of gold hung in a hole which they
have in their noses. And by signs I was able to understand that going to
the south, or going round the island to the southward, there was a king
there who had great vessels of it, and had very much of it. I tried
to persuade them to go there; and afterward I saw that they did not
understand about going.(*)

(*) To this first found land, called by the natives
Guanahani, Columbus gave the name of San Salvador. There is,
however, great doubt whether this is the island known by
that name on the maps. Of late years the impression has
generally been that th