“They do not bear arms nor do they know them, for I showed them swords and they took them by the edge, and they cut themselves through ignorance.  They have no iron at all; their javelins are rods without iron, and some of them have a fish’s tooth at the end, and some of them other things.  They are all of good stature, and good graceful appearance, well made.  I saw some who had scars of wounds in their bodies, and I made signs to them (to ask) what that was, and they showed me how people came there from other islands which lay around, and tried to take them captive and they defended themselves.  And I believed, and I (still) believe, that they came there from the mainland to take them for captives.

“They would be good servants, and of good disposition, for I see that they repeat very quickly everything which is said to them.  And I believe that they could easily be made Christians, for it seems to me that they have no belief.  I, if it please our Lord, will take six of them to your Highnesses at the time of my departure, so that they may learn to talk.  No wild creature of any sort have I seen, except parrots, in this island.”

All these are the words of the Admiral, says Las Casas.  The journal of the next day is in these words: 

Saturday, October 13.  “As soon as the day broke, many of these men came to the beach, all young, as I have said, and all of good stature, a very handsome race.  Their hair is not woolly, but straight and coarse, like horse hair, and all with much wider foreheads and heads than any other people I have seen up to this time.  And their eyes are very fine and not small, and they are not black at all, but of the color of the Canary Islanders.  And nothing else could be expected, since it is on one line of latitude with the Island of Ferro, in the Canaries.

“They came to the ship with almadias,(*) which are made of the trunk of a tree, like a long boat, and all of one piece—­and made in a very wonderful manner in the fashion of the country—­and large enough for some of them to hold forty or forty-five men.  And others are smaller, down to such as hold one man alone.  They row with a shovel like a baker’s, and it goes wonderfully well.  And if it overturns, immediately they all go to swimming and they right it, and bale it with calabashes which they carry.

     (*) Arabic word for raft or float; here it means canoes.

“They brought skeins of spun cotton, and parrots, and javelins, and other little things which it would be wearisome to write down, and they gave everything for whatever was given to them.

“And I strove attentively to learn whether there were gold.  And I saw that some of them had a little piece of gold hung in a hole which they have in their noses.  And by signs I was able to understand that going to the south, or going round the island to the southward, there was a king there who had great vessels of it, and had very much of it.  I tried to persuade them to go there; and afterward I saw that they did not understand about going.(*)