enemy, filling them with such terror, and so veiling in smoke the dash of his flesh and blood cavalry, that his victory was easy. So, it was a great satisfaction to Columbus to think that he had reached the confines of a Christian kingdom. While working through the thousand little islands off the southern coast of Cuba, that he called the Queen's Gardens, Columbus found added reason for believing that this was the Asiatic shore, and he hoped shortly to reach Cipango, or Japan, where pearls and precious stones abounded, and where the king abode in a palace covered with plates of gold more than an inch thick. The attempts of the Mongols to overrun the Asian islands were defeated, because the Cipangalese were invulnerable, having placed between the skin and the flesh of their right arms a little stone that made them safe against swords, arrows, clubs, and slings. The people of Cuba fell too easy a prey to Spanish blades--of both sorts--to allow a belief like this to last long. That Columbus thought he was approaching the earthly paradise, the mountain-guarded Eden where our first parents lived, when he neared these lovely shores, inhaled the fragrance of fruits and flowers, heard the cries of birds and saw the flash of bright waters, is probable. That paradise he sought. The serpent of oppression and wrong has left it, and as America comes into her own, that paradise shall be. The Caribs Had it not been for the Caribs the Antilleans would have led a placid existence. Those warlike and predacious Indians would not keep the peace, nor would they allow other people to do so. Though they had their capital in Guadaloupe, they extended their military enterprises in every direction, and Cuba, Porto Rico, Hayti, Jamaica, and the lesser islands suffered from their assaults. They were trained to fight from childhood, and attained to great proficiency in arms. Being active voyagers, they had some knowledge of astronomy. When operating in the waters of a hostile country it was their custom to mask their boats with palm leaves, for in this guise they stole upon the enemy the easier. Like the red men of our plains, they painted their faces, and, indeed, they retained many of the practices common to our tribes. In their traditions they came from the North, like other strong races, their old home being among the Alleghanies, and they conquered their way from Florida to Brazil. Their tribe, they say, grew up from stones that their remote ancestors had sowed in the soil. They buried their dead in a sitting posture that they might be ready to leap up when the spirit came for them, and they faced the sunrise that they might see the day of resurrection the quicker.