Cuba, Old and New | Page 3

imagination. During the absence of the emissaries, the
Indians had informed him, by signs, of a place to the eastward, where
the people collected gold along the river banks by torchlight and
afterward wrought it into bars with hammers. In speaking of this place
they again used the words Babeque and Bohio, which he, as usual,

supposed to be the proper names of islands or countries. His great
object was to arrive at some opulent and civilized country of the East,
with which he might establish commercial relations, and whence he
might carry home a quantity of oriental merchandise as a rich trophy of
his discovery. The season was advancing; the cool nights gave hints of
approaching winter; he resolved, therefore, not to proceed farther to the
north, nor to linger about uncivilized places which, at present, he had
not the means of colonizing, but to return to the east-south-east, in
quest of Babeque, which he trusted might prove some rich and civilized
island on the coast of Asia." And so he sailed away for Hispaniola
(Santo Domingo) which appears to have become, a little later, his
favorite West Indian resort.
[Illustration: THE MORRO Havana]
He began his eastward journey on November 12th. As he did not reach
Cape Maisi, the eastern point of the island, until December 5th, he must
have made frequent stops to examine the shore. Referring to one of the
ports that he entered he wrote to the Spanish Sovereigns thus: "The
amenity of this river, and the clearness of the water, through which the
sand at the bottom may be seen; the multitude of palm trees of various
forms, the highest and most beautiful that I have met with, and an
infinity of other great and green trees; the birds in rich plumage and the
verdure of the fields, render this country of such marvellous beauty that
it surpasses all others in charms and graces, as the day doth the night in
lustre. For which reason I often say to my people that, much as I
endeavor to give a complete account of it to your majesties, my tongue
cannot express the whole truth, nor my pen describe it; and I have been
so overwhelmed at the sight of so much beauty that I have not known
how to relate it."
Columbus made no settlement in Cuba; his part extends only to the
discovery. On his second expedition, in the spring of 1494, he visited
and explored the south coast as far west as the Isle of Pines, to which
he gave the name La Evangelista. He touched the south coast again on
his fourth voyage, in 1503. On his way eastward from his voyage of
discovery on the coast of Central America, he missed his direct course

to Hispaniola, and came upon the Cuban shore near Cape Cruz. He was
detained there for some days by heavy weather and adverse winds, and
sailed thence to his unhappy experience in Jamaica. The work of
colonizing remained for others. Columbus died in the belief that he had
discovered a part of the continent of Asia. That Cuba was only an
island was determined by Sebastian de Ocampo who sailed around it in
1508. Baron Humboldt, who visited Cuba in 1801 and again in 1825,
and wrote learnedly about it, states that "the first settlement of the
whites occurred in 1511, when Velasquez, under orders from Don
Diego Columbus, landed at Puerto de las Palmas, near Cape Maisi, and
subjugated the Cacique Hatuey who had fled from Haiti to the eastern
end of Cuba, where he became the chief of a confederation of several
smaller native princes." This was, in fact, a military expedition
composed of three hundred soldiers, with four vessels.
Hatuey deserves attention. His name is not infrequently seen in Cuba
today, but it is probable that few visitors know whether it refers to a
man, a bird, or a vegetable. He was the first Cuban hero of whom we
have record, although the entire reliability of the record is somewhat
doubtful. The notable historian of this period is Bartolome Las Casas,
Bishop of Chiapa. He appears to have been a man of great worth, a
very tender heart, and an imagination fully as vivid as that of Columbus.
His sympathies were aroused by the tales of the exceeding brutality of
many of the early Spanish voyagers in their relations with the natives.
He went out to see for himself, and wrote voluminously of his
experiences. He also wrote with exceeding frankness, and often with
great indignation. He writes about Hatuey. The inference is that this
Cacique, or chieftain, fled from Haiti to escape Spanish brutality, and
even in fear of his life. There are other translations of Las Casas, but
for this purpose choice has been