[Sidenote: 1493. November 10. Columbus leaves Guadaloupe.]
When Columbus sailed from Guadaloupe on November 10, he steered northwest for Española, though his captives told him that the mainland lay to the south. He passed various islands, but did not cast anchor till the 14th, when he reached the island named by him Santa Cruz, and found it still a region of Caribs. It was here the Spaniards had their first fight with this fierce people in trying to capture a canoe filled with them. The white men rammed and overturned the hollowed log; but the Indians fought in the water so courageously that some of the Spanish bucklers were pierced with the native poisoned arrows, and one of the Spaniards, later, died of such a wound inflicted by one of the savage women. All the Caribs, however, were finally captured and placed in irons on board ship. One was so badly wounded that recovery was not thought possible, and he was thrown overboard. The fellow struck for the shore, and was killed by the Spanish arrows. The accounts describe their ferocious aspect, their coarse hair, their eyes circled with red paint, and the muscular parts of their limbs artificially extended by tight bands below and above.
Proceeding thence and passing a group of wild and craggy islets, which he named after St. Ursula and her Eleven Thousand Virgins, Columbus at last reached the island now called Porto Rico, which his captives pointed out to him as their home and the usual field of the Carib incursions. The island struck the strangers by its size, its beautiful woods and many harbors, in one of which, at its west end, they finally anchored. There was a village close by, which, by their accounts, was trim, and not without some pretensions to skill in laying out, with its seaside terraces. The inhabitants, however, had fled. Two days later, the fleet weighed anchor and steered for La Navidad.
It was the 22d of November when the explorers made a level shore, which they later discovered to be the eastern end of Española. They passed gently along the northern coast, and at an attractive spot sent a boat ashore with the body of the Biscayan sailor who had died of the poisoned arrow, while two of the light caravels hovered near the beach to protect the burying party. Coming to the spot where Columbus had had his armed conflict with the natives the year before, and where one of the Indians who had been baptized at Barcelona was taken, this fellow, loaded with presents and decked in person, was sent on shore for the influence he might exert on his people. This supposable neophyte does not again appear in history. Only one of these native converts now remained, and the accounts say that he lived faithfully with the Spaniards. Five of the seven who embarked had died on the voyage.