IIO CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 



ests of Honduras and Central America ; but that they 

 originated in the same continent of South America, 

 there seems to be abundant evidence to prove. We 

 can trace them from South America northward, kill- 

 ing and devouring as they went. In the time of 

 Columbus the people of Porto Rico were beginning to 

 feel alarm from their incursions ; and the Spaniard 

 may be consoled by the thought that if he had not 

 murdered his millions, the Caribs would have event- 

 ually depopulated these peaceful isles. We have seen 

 that they had gained possession of all the Lesser An- 

 tilles, coming up from the south, and probably were 

 the same who possessed Jamaica from the west, coast- 

 ing the shore northward from Darien and crossing the 

 intervening sea. According to the Spanish writers 

 of the sixteenth century, the Carib nation then ex- 

 tended over eighteen or nineteen degrees of latitude, 

 from the Virgin Islands, east of Porto Rico, to the 

 mouths of the Amazon. It seems, then, but a ques- 

 tion of time when they would have possessed every 

 island in the Caribbean Sea. 



It is not my purpose to attempt to trace ancient 

 American civilization, but merely to describe the 

 northern limits of a people contemporary with the 

 more civilized Indians. Their warlike character and 

 unyielding nature is fully shown in their resistance to 

 the yoke of slavery the Spaniards sought to put upon 

 them, when they perished fighting rather than yield 

 to the oppressors. 



How changed are the Caribs of the present day ! 

 They have intermarried with the negroes to such an 

 extent that their individuality is nearly lost. Their 

 free mode of life, their long journeys by sea, their 



