And here the Spaniards began to learn what real savagery meant. Only
women and children appeared to inhabit the island, and these fled inland
at the strangers' approach. This afforded an excellent opportunity for
the visitors to look into the native huts and see how these wild people
lived. Hammocks of netting, earthenware dishes, and woven cotton cloth
were found; but along with these rudiments of civilization something
else was found that made the Europeans look at each other in horror--
human bones left from a recent feast!
The next day they landed at a different island, for these Caribbeans all
lie close together. Here the deplorable business of kidnapping began
again, and quite legitimately, the Spaniards thought, for were not the
miserable creatures cannibals? A young boy and three women were
captured, and from these Columbus learned that the people of the two
islands he first visited, along with a third he had not yet come to, had
formed a league among themselves to make war on the remainder of the
islands. That was why all the men happened to be absent at the time of
the Spanish landing. They had gone off in their canoes to capture women
as wives, and men and children to be killed and eaten!
The fact that the warriors of this island were absent emboldened a party
of nine Spaniards to penetrate inland in search of gold; secretly, too,
without the Admiral's knowledge or consent.
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