376 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



earthen jar containing bones, and some stone axes or celts, popularly- 

 known as " thunderbolts." In Jamaica we ourselves found pottery 

 and bones imbedded in a cave in the rocks, out of which we had to 

 break them with a machete, or cutlass. In the Jamaica cave, how- 

 ever, the lime in which the bones were incrusted appeared to be of 

 stalactitic nature, and may have been deposited more rapidly than 

 would have been the formation of true limestone. The district in 

 which the cave is situated (the St. John's Hills, Guanaboa) is a very 

 dry one, and there was no appearance of any drip from the roof or 

 sides of the cave when we visited it; so it may be assumed that the 

 incrustation must, in any case, have been a slow process. The 

 Indians had been exterminated in Jamaica for a considerable period 

 before its occupation by the English, which took place in the days of 

 Cromwell, so even a low computation of the lapse of time must assign 

 a respectable antiquity to the incrusted pottery and bones. When 

 more extensive researches and explorations take place, it is possible 

 that traces of human presence may be discovered in some of the 

 older rocks or strata of some of the islands. 



That all the larger islands were inhabited by a race which was 

 divided into tribes, some of which spoke different dialects, but which 

 derived their origin from the same stock, is shown not alone from 

 evidence afforded by skulls, pottery, and implements, but from the 

 fact of identity of language. On Columbus's first voyage he carried 

 home with him some of the natives to exhibit in Spain. Among 

 these was a boy named Didacus, taken by the admiral from Guana- 

 hani, now generally known as Watling's Island, the scene of the 

 landfall. We are told that Didacus " was a man from his child's 

 age, brought up with the admiral." Later on he sailed with Colum- 

 bus back to the Antilles and acted as his interpreter, and eventually 

 Guarionexius, the King of Cibana (in Hispaniola), in order to secure 

 to himself the friendship of Columbus, gave his sister as wife to 

 Didacus. In most of the islands Didacus appears to have under- 

 stood the language with ease, and when he failed to do so the fact is 

 expressly stated. This was the case at one end of Cuba. 



But here [writes the old chronicler] Didacus, the interpreter, which 

 understood the language of the beginning of Cuba, understood not them 

 one whit ; whereby they [the Spaniards] considered that in many prov- 

 inces of Cuba were sundry languages. 



Who these people were whose tongue was incomprehensible to 

 a Lucayan, who spoke the Arrowauk language, we have no means of 

 judging. As Didacus could not understand these people " one 

 whit," the difference in their tongue from that of the generality of 

 the Arrowauk descendants must have been very great, more so ap- 

 parently than that of a diversity of patois or of accent. This seems 



