Hammocks.
They found everything in them neat, with nets extended between posts, which they called hamacs,—a name soon adopted by sailors for swinging-beds. The houses were shaped like tents, with high chimneys, but not more than twelve or fifteen together. Dogs were running about them, but they could not bark. Columbus endeavored to buy a bit of gold, cut or stamped, which was hanging from a man's nose; but the savage refused his offers.
INDIAN BEDS.
1492. October 19.
The ships continued their course about the island, the weather not altogether favorable; but on October 19 they veered away to another island to the west of Fernandina, which Columbus named Isabella, after his Queen. This he pronounced the most beautiful he had seen; and he remarks on the interior region of it being higher than in the other islands, and the source of streams. The breezes from the shore brought him odors, and when he landed he became conscious that his botanical knowledge did not aid him in selecting such dyestuffs, medicines, and spices as would command high prices in Spain. He saw a hideous reptile, and the canonizers, after their amusing fashion, tell us that "to see and attack him were the same thing for Columbus, for he considered it of importance to accustom Spanish intrepidity to such warfare."
To find gold Columbus's main object.
1492. October 21.
The reptile proved inoffensive. The signs of his prisoners were interpreted to repeat here the welcome tale of gold. He understood them to refer to a king decked with gold. "I do not, however," he adds, "give much credit to these accounts, for I understand the natives but imperfectly." "I am proceeding solely in quest of gold and spices," he says again.