THE VOYAGERS 



Spanish task-master ; others died of hunger in the 

 mountains, or took their own and their children's lives, 

 to escape from the cruelty of Spain. The successive 

 names of the island — Hispaniola, San Domingo, Hayti — 

 embody its miserable history. The generous and gentle 

 designs of Queen Isabella gave way to a persecution 

 worthy of the fierce St. Dominic, and when the Indians 

 were dead, ' by sundry kinds of death,' the island was 

 peopled with imported negroes, under whose govern- 

 ment at last it fell. In the full Nineteenth Century, 

 the gold-laced officials of the Black Republic have been 

 known to retire by night to the mountains, to celebrate 

 their magic rites, attended by human sacrifice. 



Presages and omens of this tragedy are to be found 

 even in the Letters of Columbus. There are oft-repeated The search 

 mentions of gold. 'You will say to their Highnesses,' ^°^ ^ 

 he writes to Antonio de Torres, * that I should have 

 ardently desired to send them a larger quantity of 

 gold, . . . but that the greater part of the people we 

 employed fell suddenly ill.' Again, — ' I think it will 

 be impossible to go this year to make discoveries until 

 arrangements have been made to work the two rivers, 

 in which the gold has been found, in the most profit- 

 able manner for their Highnesses' interest.' Again, — 



* We hope, with the aid of God and with the washers Providence 

 that we have here with us, when they shall be restored ^. ushers 

 to health, to send a good quantity of gold by the 



first caravels that shall leave for Spain.' And later, — 



* Though we have not sent home ships laden with gold, 

 we have, nevertheless, sent satisfactory samples, both of 

 gold and of other valuable commodities, by which it may 

 be judged that in a short time large profit may be 



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