260 



NATURAL HISTORY OP 



words in their language, bespeak an intercourse that 

 once appears to have existed between the ancestors of 

 the present families and a Semitic nation, perhaps 

 Phoenician or Hebrew. That they were once not a 

 sedentary nation is evinced, since they still refrain 

 from travelling in the interior, unless previously pre- 

 pared for it by peculiar ceremonies, excepting one tribe, 

 which is remarkable for enterprise, and, in a small com- 

 pany, will fearlessly penetrate among hostile nations, 

 much in the character of fighting pedlars. The Caribs 

 were, like their prototypes of the Old World, a nautical 

 people, partly cannibals and conquerors, over all the 

 islands of the West Indian seas, having commenced 

 some generations before the arrival of Columbus ; their 

 career of invasion by those nearest the coast, and 

 gradually extending their enterprise to the north and 

 west, till they had subdued all to the east of Hayti, 

 where, at the time of the Spanish discovery, they had 

 as yet only secured dominion for themselves in the 

 vicinity of Samana Bay. It is erroneously asserted, 

 that no indigenous people of America had contrived 

 sea-going vessels of any size ; for, if the information 

 we received while in the country be trust worthy, with- 

 in a sandy portion of the border of the river Yuna, in 

 this very bay of Samana, a sunken canoe was found 

 buried, which was nearly 100 feet in length, propor- 

 tionally broad, and what was considered to be suffi- 

 cient evidence of the period when it had perished, was 

 the discovery of a stone vessel, a stone cassetete, and 

 an axe of flint, all within its hollow. Canoes of great 



