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He afterwards sent one of his officers to Caunaboa, cacique of the mountains of Cibao, which is the gold region. The people of this Caunaboa had besieged Hojeda and fifty soldiers in the blockhouse of San Tomas and, had they not heard of the approaching arrival of Columbus in person at the head of imposing reinforcements, they would never have raised the siege.
We applied ourselves to cacique and butio, but we found no Grand Seigneur. There were other caciques. When the Caribs descended they banded together. They had dimly, we thought, the idea of a war-lord. But it ended there, when the war ended. Tribute: He found they had no idea of tribute. Cotton grew everywhere! Cotton, cassava, calabashes, all things!
Just before sunrise they sprinkle water and meal from beautiful grails; then they all stand with bare heads to watch the rising of the sun. When his full orb is seen, once more they sprinkle the sacred water and the sacred meal over the tops of the houses. Then the cacique in a loud voice directs the labor of the day. So his talk is explained to us.
Thence I was supported down the winding road of the pyramid till I came to its foot, where my captor the cacique took me by the hand and led me through the people who, it seemed, now regarded me with some strange veneration. The first person that I saw when we reached the house was Marina, who looked at me and murmured some soft words that I could not understand.
Vasco gave Pochorroso the usual acceptable articles, and the cacique gave Vasco fifteen pounds of melted gold and some slaves. When they were about to depart, it transpired that it would be necessary to cross the territory of a chief called Tumanama, the same formerly described by the son of Comogre as the most powerful and formidable of those chiefs.
The white liquor was probably the milk of the coco nut, and perhaps the blackish vinous liquor might be the same fermented. This is an obvious error which cannot be corrected, Don James Columbus being no cacique. It is possible that one of the native caciques may have embraced Christianity, receiving those names in baptism, but of this the text gives no intelligence.
Christians have their Christ, northern Indians their Hiawatha, and the pueblo people their Bah-tah-ko, or grand cacique, who led their people from the ravages of Apache and Navajo in the far West to the Promised Land of verdant plains and watered valleys below the mighty mountains of Taos. Montezuma was to the Southwest, not the Christ, but the Adam, the Moses, the Joseph.
Guacanagari and his people had fought faithfully in defence of their guests, but were easily routed, and the cacique being wounded, his village was burnt to the ground.
"I will explain it later. This is no time for talk. We must push on with all speed or we shall not get to the boats before nightfall." "Boats! You surely don't mean to say that we are to travel to Pachatupec by boats. Boats cannot float on a frozen mountain torrent!" But the cacique, who was already on the march, made no answer.
Scarce has the ambuscade been set, when the trampling of horses heard down the defile tells of a cavalcade coming up, and presently the foremost files appear rounding an angle of rock. Dim as is the light, the horseman leading can be told to be the young Tovas cacique, while the one immediately in his rear is recognisable as Rufino Valdez.
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