Thus Making It
Evident That Such Miraculous Victories, And The Subduing Of Nations, Are
The Gift Of Providence, And Not
The effect of our power or good conduct,
or of the want of courage in the natives; for though our
Men were superior
to them, yet their numbers might have compensated for any advantage we had
over them in arms and discipline [24].
The people of the island being reduced to subjection, and conversing more
freely with our men, many particulars and secrets respecting their
religion were discovered, and many circumstances of the nature of the
country: Particularly that it contained mines of copper, azure, and amber,
and that it produced ebony, cedar, frankincense, and other rich gums, and
spice of several kinds, but wild, and which might be brought to perfection
by cultivation; as cinnamon of a good colour but bitter, ginger, long
pepper, abundance of mulberry trees for making silk which bear leaves all
the year, and many other useful trees and plants not known in our parts. I
shall here insert an account of the religion of these people as written by
the admiral, which is followed by a more particular memorial on the same
subject, written at his desire by an Anchorite who understood the language
of the natives.
"I could discover neither idolatry among those people nor any other sect,
though every one of their kings, who are very numerous both in Hispaniola
and the other islands and continent, has a house apart from the town, in
which there are nothing but some carved wooden images which they call
cemis[25], and every thing that is done in these houses is expressly for
the service of these images, the people repairing to these houses to pray
and to perform certain ceremonies, as we do to our churches.
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