The next day they landed at a different island, for these Caribbeans all lie close together. Here the deplorable business of kidnapping began again, and quite legitimately, the Spaniards thought, for were not the miserable creatures cannibals? A young boy and three women were captured, and from these Columbus learned that the people of the two islands he first visited, along with a third he had not yet come to, had formed a league among themselves to make war on the remainder of the islands. That was why all the men happened to be absent at the time of the Spanish landing. They had gone off in their canoes to capture women as wives, and men and children to be killed and eaten! The fact that the warriors of this island were absent emboldened a party of nine Spaniards to penetrate inland in search of gold; secretly, too, without the Admiral's knowledge or consent. Night came and the nine men had not returned. The crew were naturally anxious to leave the island before its man-eating population returned, but the majority were willing to await their lost companions. Next day Alonzo de Ojeda, who said he was not afraid of cannibals, led a search party clear across the island, but without success; not until the third anxious day had passed did the gold seekers get back to the ship. They had paid dearly for their adventure, having been utterly lost in a tangled forest, without food, torn and scratched by brambles, and fearing all the time that the fleet would give them up for dead and sail without them. A week having now been passed among the cannibals, Columbus decided to give up gold-hunting and go and greet the colony at La Navidad. His captives told him that the mainland lay south, and had he not grown anxious about the men he had left the year before, he might have sailed south and found South America; but instead he headed north, stopping sometimes at intermediate islands. Once again they tried capturing some natives whom they saw on the shore, but these Carib women were wonderful archers, and a number of them who managed to upset their canoe and swim for liberty shot arrows as they swam. Two of the Spaniards were thus wounded. Not until the 22d of November did the fleet come in sight of Haiti-- about a month later than if they had come direct from the Canaries. Many islands, including Porto Rico, had been discovered and named before they finally touched Espanola and began sailing along its northern coast to where the _Santa Maria_ had been wrecked. Although no gold had been found, all the men on the boats were confident that quantities of it would have been collected during the year by the men at La Navidad; and so great content reigned on all the ships.