Like many unschooled peoples, the Antillean tribes had their legend of a time when the earth was covered by a flood. The island of St. Thomas was one of the first to rise out of the sea. The Haytiens said that the deluge did not subside and that the present islands are the summits of mountains that formerly towered to a great height above the plains. Far back in the days when people lived more simply, and white men, with their abominable contrivings for work, had not even been invented, a _cacique_ or chief of their island killed his son, who had tried to harm him, albeit when the lad was dead a natural affection prompted the father to clean his bones and conceal them in a gourd. Some time afterwards the _cacique_ and his wife opened this vegetable tomb, to look on the mortal relics of their child, when a number of fish jumped out. Believing that he now had in the gourd a magic receptacle, from which he could take food at any time, the chief placed it on his roof, where mischief-makers might not reach it. While absent on a hunting-trip his four surviving sons took down the gourd to see what peculiar properties it had, and why it had been thus set apart. In passing it from one to the other it fell and was broken into little pieces. Instantly a vast quantity of water gushed from it, increasing in volume every instant. The water arose so that it reached their knees, and they had to climb the hills. Whales, sharks, porpoises, dolphins, and smaller creatures came swimming forth, and the flow of the water never ceased until the whole world was flooded, as we see it now, for the ocean came from that gourd. How Spaniards were Found to be Mortal The first Spaniards to reach the American islands were everywhere greeted as heavenly visitors, and the natives would not have been astonished had the caravels spread their sails--their wings, as they first were called--and flown into the clouds, carrying Columbus and his wrangling, jealous, sensual, gold-greedy company with him. Afterward they would have been more astonished than sorry. When the white men discovered this simple faith among the savages they encouraged it, for it induced the Indians to give up their wives, daughters, houses, weapons, and, above all else, their gold, to the strangers. The little bells and beads they gave in return were treasured because of their celestial origin and adored as fervently as the bones of saints are adored in some of the European churches. Everywhere and always the demand was for gold, and in the belief that the supply was going to last forever, Spain began to ruin herself with more industry than she had ever shown in peaceful callings. Her wars, her splendors, her vanities, her neglect of education and morality, bore their fruit when she pulled her flag down from the staff on Havana's Moro, and gave up her claims to the last foot of land in the Western world.