lue water. All was heightened by sheer joy of landing, and
of finding--finding something! And what we found was not horrible nor
deathful, but bright, promising, scented like first fruits.
To them we found we were gods! They moved about us with a kind of
ceremony of propitiation. Two youths came with a piece of bark carried
like a salver, piled with fruits and with thin cakes of some scraped
root. Another brought a parrot, a great green and rose bird that at
once talked, though we could not understand his words. Two older men had
balls, as large as melons, of some wound stuff that we presently found
to be cotton loosely twisted into yarn. The Admiral's eyes glowed. "Now
if any bring spices or pepper--" But they did not, nor did they bring
gold.
All these things they put down before us, in silence or with words that
we thought were petitions, moving not confusedly but with a manner of
ritual. The Admiral took a necklace and placed it round the throat of
the young man who first had dared, and in his hand put a hawk bell. That
was enough for himself to do, who was Viceroy. Three of us finished the
distribution. They who had brought presents were given presents. All
would have us go with them to their village, just behind the trees. A
handful of men we left with the boats and the rest of us crossed sand.
Harquebuses and crossbows went with us, but we had no need of them. The
island apparently followed peace, and its folk greatly feared to give
offense to gods from the sky. Above the ships held a range of pearly
clouds, out of which indeed one might make strange lands and forms.
The Indians--Christopherus Columbus called them "Indians"--pointed from
ships to cloud. They spoke with movements of reverence. "You have come
down--you have come down!" We understood them, though their words were
not ours.
Now the greenwood rose close at hand. The trees differed, the woven
thickness of it, the color and blossom, from any wood at home. A space
opened before us, and here was the village of these folk,--round huts
thatched with palm leaves, set on no streets, but at choice under trees.
Earth around was trodden hard, but the green woods pressed close. Here
and there showed garden patches with plants whose names and uses we knew
not. Now we came upon women and children. Like the men the women were
naked. Well-shaped and comely, with long, black, braided hair, they
seemed to us gentle, pleasing and fearless. The children were a crew
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