The Chief of Guarico (Petit Anse), whom Columbus was on his way to visit at the time of the disaster, sent a fleet of canoes to the assistance of the strangers, and did what he could to make them happy during the day. The Spaniards and the natives worked until dawn on Christmas morning, bringing ashore what they could secure from the wreck, and storing it away on the island for future use. Strange to relate, they succeeded in saving all of their provisions, the spars, and even many of the nails of the wrecked _Santa Maria._ But what a Christmas morning for Columbus and his men, stranded on an island far, far from home, among a strange people! There were no festivities to be observed by that sad, care-worn company of three hundred men on that day, but the following morning Chief Guacanagari visited the _Nina_ and took Columbus ashore, where a banquet was prepared in his honor, the first public function attended by Columbus in America. It can be pictured only in imagination. There on that beautiful island which seemed to them a paradise on earth, with tall trees waving their long fronds in the warm breeze, with myriads of birds such as they had never seen filling the air with song, Columbus stood, attired in his gorgeous uniform and dignified, as it befitted him to be, beside his host who was elegantly dressed in a _shirt_ and _a pair of gloves_ which Columbus had given him, with a coronet of gold on his head. The visiting chieftains with gold coronets moved about in nature's garb, among the "thousand,"--more or less,--who were present as guests. The feast consisted of shrimps, cassavi,--the same as the native bread of to-day,--and some of their nutritive roots. It was not a sumptuous repast although it may have been a bountiful one, yet they probably enjoyed it. The work of building a fortress began at once. Within ten days the Fortress of Navidad was completed. It stood on a hill and was surrounded with a broad, deep ditch for protection against natives and animals, and was to be the home of those of the company who remained in the New World, for the _Nina_ was too small to convey all hands across the ocean to Spain, and nothing had been heard of the _Pinta._ Leaving biscuits sufficient for a year's supply, wine, and such provisions as could be spared, Columbus bade farewell to the forty men whom he was never to see again, and sailed for the Old World on January 4, 1493. So far as recorded, Columbus was the only one among the Spaniards who received gifts during this first Yule-tide in America. But what seemed a cruel fate to him was the means of bestowing a valuable gift upon the world. Had the _Santa Maria_ continued her course in safety that Christmas Eve there might never have been a fortress or any European settlement founded. So, although it was a sad, troubled Yule-tide to the Spanish adventurers, it proved a memorable one in the annals of America.