There was no one, however, to covet the place of Peter Claver, who was devoting himself to the care of the filthy, diseased, and brutalized negroes who were being literally dumped by tens of thousands in Cartagena, to be sold into slavery to the colonists. He had come out from Spain in 1610, after the old lay-brother, Alfonso Rodriguez, had led him to the heights of sanctity and determined his vocation in the New World. His work was revolting, but Claver loved it, and as soon as a vessel arrived he was on hand with his interpreters. They hurried down into the fetid holds with food, clothing and cordials, which had been begged from the people in the town. It did not worry Claver that the poor wretches were sick with small pox or malignant fevers; he would carry them out on his back, nurse them into health, and even bury them with his own hands when they died. The unfortunate blacks had never seen anything like that before, and they eagerly listened to all he had to say about God, and made no difficulty about being baptized, striving as well as they could to shape their lives along the lines of conduct he traced out for them. He was on his feet night and day, going from bed to bed in the rude hospitals, with supplies of fruit and wine for the sick. He even brought bands of music to play for them, and showed them pictures of holy scenes in the life of Christ to help their dull intellects to grasp the meaning of his words. No wonder that often when he was among the lepers, who were his especial pets, people saw a bright light shine round him. His biographers tell us that he did not find these ordinary sufferings enough for him, and though he wore a hair-shirt and an iron cross with sharp points all day long, he was scourging himself to blood at night and praying for hours for his negroes. He died on September 8, 1654, and is now ranked among the saints, like his old master, Brother Alfonso. To the long line of islands, alternately French and English, which form, as it were, the eastern wall of the Caribbean Sea, and are known as the Lesser Antilles, the French Jesuits were sent in 1638. They are respectively Trinidad, Grenada, Saint-Vincent, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and near the northern extremity of the line, one that is of peculiarly pathetic interest, Saint Christopher, or, as it is sometimes popularly called, Saint Kitts. When the French expedition under d'Esnambuc landed at Saint Kitts in 1625, they found the English already in possession, but like sensible men, instead of cutting each other's throats, the two nationalities divided the island between them and settled down quietly, each one attending to its own affairs. In 1635 the French annexed Guadeloupe and Martinique, and, later still, Saint-Croix, Saint-Martin and a few others.