The rowers chant as they
lift and dip their broad oars. If we were gods to them,
yet they seemed gay and fearless of the gods. I thought
with the Admiral that they must have tradition or rumor,
of folk higher upon the mount of enlightenment than themselves.
Perhaps now and again there was contact. At any
rate, we did not meet here the stupefaction and the prostrations
of our first islands. We had again no common tongue,
but they proved masters of gesture. Gold was upon them,
and that in some amount, and what was extraordinary,
often enough in well-wrought shapes of ornament. A seaman
brought to the Admiral a golden frog, well-made,
pierced for a red cotton string, worn so about a copper-
colored neck. He had traded for it three hawk bells. The
Admiral's face glowed. "It has been wrought by those
who know how to work in metals! Tubal-cain!"
Moreover, now we found pearls. There came to us singing
a great canoe and in it a plumed cacique with his wife
and daughters. All wore twists of pearls around throat
and arms. They gave them freely for red, blue and green
beads, which to them were indeed rubies, sapphires and
emeralds.--Whence came the pearls? It seemed from the
coast beyond and without this gulf. Whence the gold? It
seemed from high mountains far behind the country of
Paria. It was dangerous in the extreme to go there!
"Because of the light which repels all darkness!" said the
Admiral.
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