74 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 
and cocoa palm, embowering their dwellings in per- 
petual shade; and the calabash (furnishing nearly all 
their vessels for culinary use) spreads its gnarled 
branches, with a wealth of useful products, at their 
doors. Guavas grow wild, and the berries and buds 
of the mountain palm, with many other fruits and nuts 
of the forest, furnish them with food. The many 
rivers yield to them delicious crayfish, water snails, 
and limpets. If they can get rum, now and then, they 
drink it and are happy—they are happy any way, 
even without this occasional luxury. 
In a land that is theirs by right; beneath a sky 
ever genial, though not always smiling ; able to satisfy 
hunger by little toil in the garden, or exertion upon 
the sea, or in the river, it is not strange that they 
should be content with the bounties of the present, nor 
care to question the precarious prospects of the future. 
In the morning the coolness of the bath provokes 
one to linger, and later the warmth of the sun seems 
to warn one from much exertion, while the heat of 
mid-day positively forbids it. The increased coolness 
of the afternoon, when the sun dips down behind the 
mountain ridge, leaving two good hours of dreamy 
shadow, tempts one to give one’s self over to the enjoy- 
ment of mere existence. Thus the days pass away 
in this delightful clime. And now, that you, reader, 
may better understand who are these people whom I 
would describe in the following pages, allow me to go 
back a few centuries; let me turn, in fact, to the first 
page in American history, and let the same great navi- 
gator who opened the way for the discovery of our 
continent, relate the story of the finding of the Caribs. 
Columbus sailed away from Cadiz, on his second 
