248 D0TTINGS ON THE ROADSIDE. [Chap. XY.—B. P. 
gines of the country by the light of the description of 
them as given by Columbus himself, and the various 
navigators who have followed him. 
Columbus states that the natives of this neighbour¬ 
hood, and for a considerable distance eastward, had 
higher foreheads than those of the islands. They 
spoke different languages, and varied from each other 
in their decorations. Some were entirely naked, 
and their bodies were marked, by means of fire, 
with the figures of various animals. Some wore 
coverings about the loins, others cotton jerkins with¬ 
out sleeves ; some only tresses of hair in front. The 
chiefs had caps of white or coloured cotton. When 
arrayed for any festival, they painted their faces black, 
or with stripes of various colours, or with circles round 
the eyes. In one part of the coast the ears were bored 
and hideously extended. On every occasion that the 
strangers approached the shores, Columbus relates that 
the natives assembled in vast numbers, armed with 
bows and arrows, war-clubs, and lances, prepared to 
defend their country, and that they never evinced the 
smallest fear of the Spaniards,—in marked contrast to 
the conduct of the islanders, who submitted to slavery 
without making any resistance worthy of mention. 
Fernando Columbus, the son of the great navigator, 
describes the Mosquito Indians as almost negroes in 
colour, brutish, going naked, in all respects very rude, 
eating human flesh, and devouring their fish raw, as 
they happen to catch them. A monkish report is still 
less flattering, and that will complete the earliest 
records we have of a race now very nearly extinct. 
