CHAPTER IX.
THE CARIBS.
The Indians whom Ponce de Leon and his followers treated so unkindly were gentle and generous, as I have said. They were not eager for war, like many of the tribes on the continent, nor savage in their habits. They wore short girdles of cotton cloth, raised crops of corn and manioc, and built large canoes in which they took quite long voyages. They wrought the gold found in the streams into ornaments.
This tribe of Indians was very numerous at the time the Spaniards first came to the West Indies, but now there is not a single trace of them left. War with the Spaniards, hard work for their masters in the mines and fields,—these made the race die out rapidly.
It is sad to think that the Spaniards tortured them also.
Is it any wonder that the natives did not care to share the Spaniards' heaven, but died hating them with all their hearts?
Long before Ponce de Leon came to Porto Rico, the poor Indians were attacked from time to time by other enemies; but although they suffered much, they were never conquered. These enemies were the Caribs, who seemed to love war better than anything else in the world.
Sometimes the people would be strolling along the shores of the island when they would see something out on the ocean which looked like a mass of floating palm leaves. That did not frighten them, of course, and they would go on with their sports.
When it was too late to give the alarm, they discovered that the mass of palm leaves was the covering of a boat-load of fierce warriors who were all ready to attack them.