CONTENTS OF PART III.

CONTENTS OF PART III.

The Caribs, when discovered by Columbus, were in possession of the smaller West Indian islands, and had begun to attack the larger.

Of their origin nothing certain is known. Humboldt states that the opinion common amongst Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was that they came from the vicinity of Darien, and that more recently they were supposed to have come from the northern continent.

But the constant tradition of the Caribs themselves, both in the islands and on the main, claims Guiana as the cradle of their race, and the Orinoco as the point from which they started on their career of conquest.

A comparison of their language with that of the Orinoco Tamanacs, and with that of the Chaymas to the north of that river, will confirm, as far as language can, the truth of their tradition.