Author: William Gilmore Simms

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-03

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9781330639054

Excerpt from The Damsel of Darien, Vol. 2 of 2 With the first beams of the morning sun, the Indian warriors of Zemaco, a wild and motly armament, prepared to descend from the mountains into the plain, or rather valley, in which lay the Spanish settlement of Darien. More than five thousand men, detachments from a hundred tribes, which acknowledged the sovereignty of Zemaco, were assembled under the lead of this vindictive chief. They gathered at his summons from the province of Zobayda, where the golden temple of their worship stood, and which they esteemed to be the visible dwelling of their God; Abibeyba, Zenu, and many other provinces, the several cassiques of which, though not present with the quotas which they provided, were yet required by Zemaco to hold themselves in readiness to defend their territories from the incursions of the Spaniards. The hills that rose on three sides of the Spanish settlement were darkened with savage warriors. Exulting in the certainty of victory, they brandished their macanas of palm wood, and shot their arrows upward in defiance, while they sounded their war conchs for the general gathering. Never, in his whole career of sway and con quest, had the proud mountain chief at one time, assembled so vast a host. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.