gathered fruits and knew the charm of smoking tobacco;
they spun and wove the fibre of cotton into
simple fabrics, made crude pottery, and carved implements
and utensils of wood and stone. Relics
of rude images and carvings of pictorial inscriptions
upon rocks have been found, which show the awakening
of the artistic and literary instincts. Their
dwellings were generally extensive huts formed of
branches, reeds, and large leaves of palm and plantain,
and contained many families, sometimes a community
of a hundred persons and more. T h e y , too,
had broad-beamed craft with which they navigated
the inlets and bays of their land and sometimes
ventured forth to sea. Cuba was not so devoid of
quadrupeds as the Bahamas, having the peccary, a
“ dumb d o g ,” — probably the raccoon,— ‘ ‘ rats and
mice, and such small deer,” but the people did not
eat flesh. Arawak is said to mean meal-eater, and
the diet of the race may account for its gentle and
peaceable disposition and amiable qualities, which
excited the admiration of the discoverers, but did
not protect the harmless people from their cruelty.
Jamaica— Xaymaca, % the land of fountains” —
was also populous. Its pimento groves swarmed
with a tribe described as somewhat smaller and
darker than those of Cuba, but their characteristics
and habits were much the same. T h e y lived chiefly
upon the products of the soil, which they cultivated
as much as they found necessary; they smoked to bacco,
and were abstemious in eating and drinking,
and were neither warlike nor addicted to the slaughter
of living things. More relics of native handiwork
have been found here, and early descriptions
indicate a greater fondness for ornamentation. The
t r e a t cacique is said to have had a showy canoe
that would carry a hundred men, to have worn a
band of coloured stones around his head and a
Imantle of variegated feathers, and otherwise to have
been decorated with gold and beads and stones more
lor less precious.
[ Old records declare that Haiti had more than 1,-
1)00,000 inhabitants when it was discovered, and some
chroniclers put the number much higher, but nobody
Iknows. It simply gave the impression of swarming
Iwith people, who were first described as small of
stature and of dark complexion, with all the amiable
characteristics of their fellow Arawaks. T he island
was divided into five kingdoms, each with its own
cacique,— the Arawak title for ruler, but, in the
mountains of the interior, the realm of Cibao, which
|vas reported to be a realm of gold, had for its potentate
a Carib invader with warriors at his command.
A ll along the coasts, however, the people
lia ised their fields of maize and manioc, and of
tobacco and co tton ; they constructed their canoes
bf cottonwood and cedar, made simple fabrics of
fcotton and feathers, wrought implements of wood
knd stone, and essayed their rude works of art in
pottery and graven images. In some of the limestone
caves with which the island abounds rude
ifcarvings have been found of crocodiles, turtles, frogs,
scorpions, and other animal forms, incrusted with
the calcareous deposits of ages. T he people seem
Tto have led a peaceful life, save when disturbed by