Nor did we quarrel among ourselves and show them European weakness.
Guacanagari remained a big, easy, somewhat slothful, friendly barbarian, a child in much, but brave enough when roused and not without common sense.

He had an itch for marvels, loved to hear tales of our world that for all one could say remained to them witchcraft and cloudland, world above their world! What could they, who had no great beasts, make of tales of horsemen?
What could their huts know of palace and tower and cathedral, their swimmers of stone bridges, their canoes of a thousand ships greater far than the_ Santa Maria_ and the _Nina_?
What could Guarico know of Seville?
In some slight wise they practiced barter, but huge markets and fairs to which traveled from all quarters and afar merchants and buyers went with the tales of horsemen.

And so with a thousand things! We were the waving oak talking to the acorn.
But there were among this folk two or three ready for knowledge.

Guarin was a learning soul.

He foregathered with the physician Juan Lepe, and many a talk they had, like a master and pupil, in some corner of La Navidad, or under a palm-thatched roof, or, when the rain held, by river or sounding sea.