It was to them what griffon or fire-breathing
dragon might be to a Seville throng. When the creature
sprang among them they uttered a great cry and fled.
Jamaica is most beautiful.
For not a few days we visited, sailing and anchoring,
lifting again and stopping again. Once the people were
pacified, they gave us kindly enough welcome, trading and
wondering. We slipped by bold coasts and headlands which
we must double, mountains above us. They ran by inland
paths, saving distance, telling village after village. When
we made harbor, here was the thronged beach. Some of
these people wore a slight dress of woven grass and palm
leaves, and they used crowns of bright feathers. We got
from them in some quantity golden ornaments. But south
for gold, south--south, they always pointed south!
The _Cordera_, the _Santa Clara_ and the _San Juan_ set sail
out of the Harbor of Good Weather, in Santiago or Jamaica.
A day and a night of pleasant sailing, then we saw
the great Cuba coast rise blue in the distance. The weather
wheeled.
There was first a marvelous green hush, while clouds
formed out of nothing. We heard a moaning sound and we
did not know its quarter. The sea turned dead man's
color. Then burst the wind. It was more than wind; it
seemed the movement of a world upon us. Bare of all
sails, we labored.
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