Strand,—for the purpose of plundering and destroying them, as we might expect from savages, and as the Cazique would have been served had he been wrecked himself on the Spanish, or on our own coast at that time? No! but better Christian than most of those who bore that name, he came eagerly to do the very deed enjoined by Christ and his followers,—to succour and to save. "The prince," says Herrera, their own historian, "appeared all zeal and activity at the head of his people. He placed armed guards to keep off the press of the natives, and to keep clear a space for the depositing of the goods as they came to land: he sent out as many as were needful in their canoes to put themselves under the guidance of the Spaniards, and to assist them all in their power in the saving of their goods from the wreck. As they brought them to land, he and his nobles received them, and set sentinels over them, not suffering the people even to gratify that curiosity which at such a crisis must have been very great, to examine and inspect the curious articles of a new people; and his subjects participating in all his feelings, wept tears of sincere distress for the sufferers, and condoled with them in their misfortune. But as if this was not enough, the next morning, when Columbus had removed to one of his other vessels, the good Guacanahari appeared on board to comfort him, and to offer all that he had to repair his loss!"
This beautiful circumstance is moreover still more particularly related by Columbus himself, in his letter to his sovereigns; and it was on this occasion that he gave that character of the country and the people to which I have just referred. Truly had he a great
