CHAP.
I.]
CHRISTOPHER
COLUMBUS.
143
brown. According to old Peter Martyr, the Spaniards when they beheld them issuing forth from their green woods, almost ima gined they beheld the fabled dryads, or native nymphs and fairies of the fountains, sung by the ancient poets.* When they came before Don Bartholomew, they knelt and gracefully presented him the green branches. After these came the female cacique Anacaona, reclining on a kind of light litter borne by six Indians. Like the other females, she had no other covering than an apron of various-colored cotton. She wore round her head a fragrant garland of red and white flowers, and wreaths of the same round her neck and arms. She received the Adelantado and his follow ers with that natural grace and courtesy for which she was cele brated; manifesting no hostility towards them for the fate her husband had experienced at their hands. The Adelantado and his officers were conducted to the house of Behechio, where a banquet was served up of utias, a great variety of sea and river fish, with roots and fruits of excellent quality. Here first the Spaniards conquered their repugnance to the guana, the favorite delicacy of the Indians, but which the former had regarded with disgust, as a species of serpent. The Adelantado, willing to accustom himself to the usages of the country, was the first to taste this animal, being kindly pressed thereto by Anacaona. His followers imitated his example ; they found it to be highly palatable and delicate ; and from that time forward, the guana was held in repute among Spanish epicures.† * Peter Martyr, decad. i. lib. v. †“These serpentes are lyke unto crocodiles, saving in bygness ; they call them guanas.
Unto that day none of owre men durste adventure to taste of
them, by reason of theyre horrible deformitie and lothsomnes.
Yet the Ade
lantado being entysed by the pleasantnes of the king's sister, Anacaona, deter-