But let us return to our narrative.  Upon the arrival of the Spaniards, the islanders, both men and women, abandoned their houses and fled.  About thirty women and children whom they had captured in the neighbouring islands and kept either as slaves or to be eaten, took refuge with the Spaniards.  In the houses were found pots of all kinds, jars and large earthen vessels, boxes and tools resembling ours.  Birds were boiling in their pots, also geese mixed with bits of human flesh, while other parts of human bodies were fixed on spits, ready for roasting.  Upon searching another house the Spaniards found arm and leg bones, which the cannibals carefully preserve for pointing their arrows; for they have no iron.  All other bones, after the flesh is eaten, they throw aside.  The Spaniards discovered the recently decapitated head of a young man still wet with blood.  Exploring the interior of the island they discovered seven rivers,[5] without mentioning a much larger watercourse similar to the Guadalquivir at Cordoba and larger than our Ticino, of which the banks were deliciously umbrageous.  They gave the name of Guadaloupe to this island because of the resemblance one of its mountains bore to the Mount Guadaloupe, celebrated for its miraculous statue of the Virgin Immaculate.  The natives call their island Caracueira, and it is the principal one inhabited by the Caribs.  The Spaniards took from Guadaloupe seven parrots larger than pheasants, and totally unlike any other parrots in colour.  Their entire breast and back are covered with purple plumes, and from their shoulders fall long feathers of the same colour, as I have often remarked in Europe is the case with the capons peasants raise.  The other feathers are of various colours,—­green, bluish, purple, or yellow.  Parrots are as numerous in all these islands as sparrows or other small birds are with us; and just as we keep magpies, thrushes, and similar birds to fatten them, so do these islanders also keep birds to eat, though their forests are full of parrots.

[Note 5:  In reality, these so-called rivers were unimportant mountain torrents.]

The female captives who had taken refuge with our people received by the Admiral’s order some trifling presents, and were begged by signs to go and hunt for the cannibals, for they knew their place of concealment.  In fact they went back to the men during the night, and the following morning returned with several cannibals who were attracted by the hope of receiving presents; but when they saw our men, these savages, whether because they were afraid or because they were conscious of their crimes, looked at one another, making a low murmur, and then, suddenly forming into a wedge-shaped group, they fled swiftly, like a flock of birds, into the shady valleys.

Having called together his men who had passed some days exploring the interior of the island, Columbus gave the signal for departure.  He took no cannibal with him, but he ordered their boats, dug out of single tree-trunks, to be destroyed, and on the eve of the ides of November he weighed anchor and left Guadaloupe.