HISTORY OF THE [BOOK. n. 



caves are frequently discovered in the mountains, 

 wherein the ground is covered with human bones; 

 the miserable remains, without all doubt, of some of 

 the unfortunate aborigines, who, immured in those 

 recesses, were probably reduced to the sad alterna- 

 tive of perishing with hunger, or bleeding under the 

 swords of their merciless invaders. || When therefore, 

 we are told of the fate of the Spanish inhabitants of Se- 

 ville, it is impossible to feel any other emotion, than 

 an indignant \vish that the story were better authen- 

 ticated, and that Heaven in mercy had permitted the 

 poor Indians in the same moment to have extirpated 

 their oppressors altogether! But, unhappily, this faint 

 glimmering of returning light to the wretched natives, 

 was soon lost in everlasting darkness, since it pleased 

 the Almighty, for reasons inscrutable to finite wis- 

 dom, to permit the total destruction of this devoted 

 people j who, to the number of 60,000, on the most 

 moderate estimate, were at length whollv cut off 



' O J 



and exterminated by the Spaniards, not a single de- 

 scendant of either sex, being alive when the English 

 took the island in 1655, nor, I believe for a century 

 before.* 



jj It is discovered by the skulls, which are preternaturally compressed, 

 that these are the skeletons of the Indians. 



* There is said to exist on the south side of the island of Cuba, at this 

 day, a small remnant of the ancient Indians. They reside in a little 

 town near St Jago de Cuba, called Inuanee^ and have adopted the man- 

 ners and language of the Spaniards. The destruction of such prodigi- 

 ous numbers of these innocent people by the first discoverers is one of the 

 most extraordinary circumstances in the history of mankind, and the sub-? 

 jecl can never be contemplated but with blended sentiments of indignation 



