And at last came an Indian canoe—­two—­three, filled with light-hued, hardly more than tawny, folk, with cloth of cotton about their middles and twisted around their heads, with bows and arrows and those new bucklers.  But seeing that we did not wish to fight, they did not wish to fight either; and there was all the old amaze.

Gods—­gods—­gods!  We sought the Earthly Paradise, and they thought we came therefrom.

Paria.  We made out that they called their country Paria.

They had in their canoes a bread like cassava, but more delicate, we thought, and in calabashes almost a true wine.  We gave them toys, and as they always pointed westward and seemed to signify that there was the land, we returned after two hours to the ships and set ourselves to follow the coast.  Two or three of this people would go with the gods.

We came to that river mouth that troubled all this sea.  What shall I say but that it was itself a sea, a green sea, a fresh sea?  We crossed it with long labor.  The men of Paria made us understand that their season of rain was lately over, and that ever after that was more river.  Whence did it come?  They spoke at length and, Christopherus Columbus was certain, of some heavenly country.

The dawn came up sweet and red.  The country before us had hills and we made out clearings in the monster forest, and now the blue water was thronged with canoes.  We anchored; they shot out to us fearlessly.  The Jamaica canoe is larger and better than the Haytien, but those of this land surpass the Jamaican.  They are long and wide and have in the middle a light cabin.  The rowers chant as they lift and dip their broad oars.  If we were gods to them, yet they seemed gay and fearless of the gods.  I thought with the Admiral that they must have tradition or rumor, of folk higher upon the mount of enlightenment than themselves.  Perhaps now and again there was contact.  At any rate, we did not meet here the stupefaction and the prostrations of our first islands.  We had again no common tongue, but they proved masters of gesture.  Gold was upon them, and that in some amount, and what was extraordinary, often enough in well-wrought shapes of ornament.  A seaman brought to the Admiral a golden frog, well-made, pierced for a red cotton string, worn so about a copper-colored neck.  He had traded for it three hawk bells.  The Admiral’s face glowed.  “It has been wrought by those who know how to work in metals!  Tubal-cain!”

Moreover, now we found pearls.  There came to us singing a great canoe and in it a plumed cacique with his wife and daughters.  All wore twists of pearls around throat and arms.  They gave them freely for red, blue and green beads, which to them were indeed rubies, sapphires and emeralds.—­Whence came the pearls?  It seemed from the coast beyond and without this gulf.  Whence the gold?  It seemed from high mountains far behind the country of Paria.  It was dangerous in the extreme to go there!  “Because of the light which repels all darkness!” said the Admiral.  “When we go there, it must be gently and humbly like shriven men.”