COLUMBUS.
185
fruits of the groves, formed their principal food.
There were vast
CHAP.
IV.]
CHRISTOPHER
quantities of cotton, some just sown, some in full growth.
There
was great store of it also in their houses, some wrought into yarn, or into nets, of which they made their hammocks.
They had
seen many birds of rare plumage, but unknown species; many ducks; several small partridges; and they heard the song of a bird which they had mistaken for the nightingale.
All that they
had seen, however, betokened a primitive and simple state of society.
The wonder with which they had been regarded, showed
clearly that the people were strangers to civilized man, nor could they hear of any inland city superior to the one they had visited. The report of the envoys put an end to many splendid fancies of Columbus, about the barbaric prince and his capital.
He was
cruising, however, in a region of enchantment, in which pleasing chimeras started up at every step, exercising by turns a power over his imagination.
During the absence of the emissaries, the
Indians had informed him, by signs, of a place to the eastward, where the people collected gold along the river banks by torchlight, and afterwards wrought it into bars with hammers.
In
speaking of this place they again used the words Babeque and Bohio, which he, as usual, supposed to be the proper names of islands or countries.
The true meaning of these words has been
variously explained.
It is said that they were applied by the
Indians to the coast of terra firma, called also by them Caritaba.* It is also said that Bohio means a house, and was often used by the Indians to signify the populousness of an island.
Hence it was
frequently applied to Hispaniola, as well as the more general name of Hayti, which means high land, and occasionally Quisqueya (i. e. the whole), on account of its extent. * Muñoz,Hist. N. Mundo, cap. 3 .