es into two
bands, giving the command of one to his brother Bartholomew, and leading
the other himself; and when the brothers made an attack upon the Indians
at the same time from different quarters, this numerous host was at once
and utterly put to flight. In speaking of such a defeat, the modern reader
must not be lavish of the words "cowardly," "pusillanimous," and the like,
until, at least, he has well considered what it is to expose naked bodies
to firearms, to the charge of steel-clad men on horseback, and to the
clinging ferocity of bloodhounds.

SLAUGHRTER OF NATIVES.

A "horrible carnage" ensued upon the flight of the Indians. Many of them,
less fortunate, perhaps, than those who were slain, being taken alive,
were condemned to slavery. Caonabo, however, who was besieging the
fortress of St. Thomas at the time of the battle on the Vega Real,
remained untaken. The admiral resolved to secure the person of this
cacique by treachery; and sent Ojeda (who afterwards became a conspicuous
actor in the sad drama of conquest and depopulation in the West Indies) to
cajole Caonabo into coming to a friendly meeting. There are some curious
instructions of Columbus's to Margarite in 1494, respecting a plot to take
this formidable Caonabo. They are as thoroughly base and treacherous as
can well be imagined. This time the admiral's plan was completely
successful.

CUNNING CAPTURE OF INDIAN CHIEF.

The story which was current in the colonies, of the manner in which Ojeda
captured the resolute Indian chief, is this. Ojeda carried with him gyves
and manacles, the latter of the kind called by the Spaniards, somewhat
satirically, esposas (wives), and all made of brass or steel, finely
wrought, and highly polished. The metals of Spain were prized by the
Indians in the same way that the gold of the Indies was by the Spaniards.
Moreover, amongst the Indians, there was a strange rumour of talking
brass, that arose from their listening to the church bell at Isabella,
which, summoning the Spaniards to mass, was thought by the simple Indians
to converse with them. Indeed the natives of Hispaniola held the Spanish
metals in such estimation that they applied to them an Indian word, Turey,
which seems to have signified anything that descends from heaven. When,
therefore, Ojeda brought these ornaments to Caonabo, and told him they
were Biscayan Turey, and that they were a great present from the admiral,
and that he would show him h