the same as yesterday, that your Highnesses command and rule over all the best part of the world, and that there are no other such great Princes:  and I showed him the royal banners and the others with the cross, which he held in great estimation:  and he said to his counsellors that your Highnesses must be great Lords, since you had sent me here from so far without fear:  and many other things happened which I did not understand, except that I very well saw he considered everything as very wonderful.”

Later in the day Columbus got into talk with an old man who told him that there was a great quantity of gold to be found on some island about a hundred leagues away; that there was one island that was all gold; and that in the others there was such a quantity that they natives gathered it and sifted it with sieves and made it into bars.  The old man pointed out vaguely the direction in which this wonderful country lay; and if he had not been one of the principal persons belonging to the King Columbus would have detained him and taken him with him; but he decided that he had paid the cacique too much respect to make it right that he should kidnap one of his retinue.  He determined, however, to go and look for the gold.  Before he left he had a great cross erected in the middle of the Indian village; and as he made sail out of the harbour that evening he could see the Indians kneeling round the cross and adoring it.  He sailed eastward, anchoring for a day in the Bay of Acul, which he called Cabo de Caribata, receiving something like an ovation from the natives, and making them presents and behaving very graciously and kindly to them.

It was at this time that Columbus made the acquaintance of a man whose character shines like a jewel amid the dismal scenes that afterwards accompanied the first bursting of the wave of civilisation on these happy shores.  This was the king of that part of the island, a young man named Guacanagari.  This king sent out a large canoe full of people to the Admiral’s ship, with a request that Columbus would land in his country, and a promise that the chief would give him whatever he had.  There must have been an Intelligence Department in the island, for the chief seemed to know what would be most likely to attract the Admiral; and with his messengers he sent out a belt with a large golden mask attached to it.  Unfortunately the natives on board the Admiral’s ship could not understand Guacanagari’s messengers, and nearly the whole of the day was passed in talking before the sense of their message was finally made out by means of signs.  In the evening some Spaniards were sent ashore to see if they could not get some gold; but Columbus, who had evidently had some recent experience of their avariciousness, and who was anxious to keep on good terms with the chiefs of the island, sent his secretary with them to see that they did nothing unjust or unreasonable.  He was scrupulous to see that the natives got their bits of glass and