THE ABORIGIXES. Bll 



cazique's sisters were preferred on account of the greater certainty 

 of royal blood. The sovereigns were looked np to with reverence 

 and obeyed with submission. Royal ornaments, numerous at- 

 tendants, and a multitude of wives attested their royal power. 

 Heroic songs, hymns of praise, public dances of honor, together 

 with the notes of musical instruments made of shells, and the 

 deafening noise of rude drums, formed a part of their funeral 

 obsequies. 



The Bahamas interested but did not satisfy the the Spaniards. 

 They sought in vain in the coralline rocks for the golden ores 

 that gilded their fevered dreams. The passion for 



"Gold: Gold! Gold: Gold! 

 Bright and yellow, hard and cold," 



was all pervading, and so absorbing and intense that they seemed 

 dead to every tender sentiment and ennobling impulse. For a 

 time poverty did for the islanders more than the greatest riches 

 could have accomplished — peace and security, and the strange 

 visitors whom they were ready to worship as divine, departed. 



Guileless, unsuspecting, generous and unselfish themselves, 

 how could these aborigines understand the wonderful beings, who, 

 from the vast solitudes of an illimitable ocean, had suddenly. 

 landed upon their picturesque shores? In the distant east from 

 whence the strangers had come, only the morning sun, in golden 

 effulgence, had ever before emerged. Were not these then, the 

 children of the sun ? Had they not all of the divine and none 

 of the human? No wonder, that as Herrera states, they were 

 at first never satisfied with looking at the' Spaniards, but knelt, 

 lifted up their hands and gave thanks to God, calling upon each 

 other to admire the heavenly men! 



Afterwards, a new and strange interest invested these islands 



