Zolca patted the post that formed the cross, and said, two or three times, a word that sounded like “Gon-vil”. This awakened a chord in my memory, which I could not explain until it suddenly flashed before me. And I saw myself a boy in old Harlem, pondering over stories of adventure; and amongst them that of the Norman captain, Paulmier de Gonneville, who discovered a great south land, where he stayed with the natives for six months, finding them very peaceful and gentle, although warlike towards other tribes. My memory now becoming clear, I recalled reading of the great Cross he erected, and how he had taken a prince of the country to France, promising to return with him, which, however, he was prevented from doing.
This, then, was the land, and thus was our friendly reception accounted for. It was more than one hundred years since Paulmier de Gonneville had been there, but the tradition that he would return had evidently been faithfully handed down and preserved. I now saw what course to pursue, and felt thankful that my boyish love of reading about discoveries had given the information.
“Gonneville! Gonneville!” I said eagerly, and the delighted native repeated it. Then he insisted on our returning with him, and on arriving at what may be called the palace, he produced a Latin missal, inside of which I could trace in faded characters:
“Jean Binot Paulmier de Gonneville. Honfleur, 1503.”
After deciphering it I read it aloud, much to the pleasure of the two natives, for Quibibio had now joined us. Zolca next produced an old-fashioned, short sword, evidently of French make, but there was no inscription on it. Struck by a sudden thought, I drew the old cutlass I had carried so long and presented it to Zolca, making him understand that it was a present. He seemed at first so pleased with the wretched weapon that he could only look at it with delighted eyes; then he put his hands on my shoulders and kissed me on both cheeks, a French custom handed down, I presume, from Gonneville’s time. I heartily wished the performer had been his sister, Azolta, who had entered the room and was gazing shyly at us.
I now, having got a footing, as it were, tried to show them by signs, and drawings on the ground with my finger, what had happened to us; how our ship had been wrecked, how we had lived amongst the Indians—at which both father and son showed signs of disgust,—how we had walked on and on until we came to their country. They seemed to readily comprehend it all, and from that time we were as one of the race, and from the date of giving him the cutlass Zolca was my brother. We at once assumed the Quadruco dress, and every one was our friend.
I will now give some account of these people, it being of course what I have since learned.
They are, or, alas! were, of a light colour, with dark hair and eyes, and as I said before, beardless. They were well built, averaging about five feet eight or nine; extremely good-looking, especially the women, many of the young girls being nearly as beautiful as Azolta. Their dress, which was woven out of the woolly pod of a bush, was a single garment like a long shirt, with a girdle round the waist; it reached a little below the knee, and was the same in both sexes. The men wore a turban, but the women wore only ornamental head-dresses of flowers and feathers. They had little occasion to work, the valley being so fertile, and the hunting was merely a pastime and an exercise. The men had but one wife (Quibibio’s was dead), and family affection seemed very strong between them. They had a simple kind of religion, which I don’t think was much thought of, and consisted merely in a belief in a Great Spirit, who sometimes was kind, and sometimes angry. They had plenty of dances and games, but very few rites or ceremonies.
The tradition of their origin was that their forefathers, with their wives, came from some far-away island in two large canoes; that they found the valley they lived in almost uninhabited, save for some scattered families of savages who fled at sight of them, and they settled down and had lived there ever since.
Of their wars with the Indians, and with two other nations who came from the sea in big boats, I shall have to speak presently, as I had to take my part in them.