Note Back to Main Text — Chapter VI · THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS.

The pomp and bustle of the departure from Cadiz, September 25, 1493, at which the Admiral's two sons, Diego and Ferdinand, were present, must have been one of the earliest recollections of the younger boy, then just five years of age.[557] Again Columbus stopped at the Canary islands, this time to take on board goats and sheep, pigs and fowls, for he had been struck by the absence of all such animals on the coasts which he had visited.[558] Seeds of melons, oranges, and lemons were also taken. On the 7th of October the ships weighed anchor, heading a trifle to the south of west, and after a pleasant and uneventful voyage they sighted land on the 3d of November.[559] It turned out to be a small mountainous island, and as it was discovered on Sunday they called it Dominica. In a fortnight's cruise in these Caribbean waters they discovered and named several islands, such as Marigalante, Guadaloupe, Antigua, and others, and at length reached Porto Rico. Cruise among the cannibal islands. The inhabitants of these islands were ferocious cannibals, very different from the natives encountered on the former voyage. There were skirmishes in which a few Spaniards were killed with poisoned arrows. On Guadaloupe the natives lived in square houses made of saplings intertwined with reeds, and on the rude porticoes attached to these houses some of the wooden pieces were carved so as to look like serpents. In some of these houses human limbs were hanging from the roof, cured with smoke, like ham; and fresh pieces of human flesh were found stewing in earthen kettles, along with the flesh of parrots. Now at length, said Peter Martyr, was proved the truth of the stories of Polyphemus and the Læstrygonians, and the reader must look out lest his hair stand on end.[560] These western Læstrygonians were known as Caribbees, Caribales, or Canibales, and have thus furnished an epithet which we have since learned to apply to man-eaters the world over.