Their revenge was deep and implacable—it resembled rather the wild fury of a lion than the passion of a man. When anger took possession of a Carib’s heart, he vented it against everything, whether animate or inanimate, which chanced to fall in his way. Although in general calm and apparently insensible to pain, if struck by an arrow in these moments of rage, like the North American Indian, he would tear it from the wound, bite it, spit upon it, and, dashing it to the ground, trample it to atoms beneath his feet. He never pitied—never forgave—never spared! To fall upon an enemy unarmed, knock him down, capture him, and finally eat him, was the boast of a Carib warrior! For this they were bred up from their youth. To bear with an unflinching spirit the most excruciating torments, inflicted by the hands of his own father and nearest kin—to suffer all the severities and unnatural cruelties which the savage breast was capable of imagining without betraying one symptom of weakness—to rise superior to pain, and baffle the rage of his persecutors by calmness and tranquillity, was the test by which the courage of the young Carib was tried. If he succeeded in this, he was looked upon as one of the warriors of his country, and pronounced “a man like themselves;” while, on the contrary, should one cry escape his lips, one supplication for mercy break from him, he was despised as a coward, and driven from society. When an expedition against the Arrowawks was intended, a chief was elected, with solemn ceremonies. During the time of peace, however, the Caribs appear to have owned no head; they paid, indeed, some little veneration to the old men, but this appears to have been merely from respect to their age,—at any rate, they were not able, by their influence, to protect the weak or the stranger. The man who aspired to lead his countrymen to war was obliged to undergo the most severe sufferings before he was accounted worthy of that honour. If he was successful, upon his return he was treated with a grand feast, and was allowed to take as many captives for his own share as he liked, and alter his name a second time to that of the most formidable Arrowawk who had fallen by his hand, while his own people presented for his choice the most beautiful of their daughters. Their mode of warfare was very different to that of the present day,—they thought it no honour to fall fighting for their country. Their plan was, not to wait for a drawing up of their forces, but to capture all their foes they found unprepared, whom, at the end of the war, they carried home, and either slaughtered them for the grand feast, or kept them until they became sufficiently plump for eating. They preserved the fat of these poor creatures to anoint the bodies of their children, in hopes of making them as martial as themselves.