LIFE OF COLUMBUS. 375 



the royal service, and attended by distinguished citizens, 

 and by a marine guard of honor, with mourning ban- 

 ners and muffled drums. On arriving at the mole, the 

 remains were met by the governor, and were then con- 

 veyed, between files of soldiery which lined the streets, to 

 the obelisk, in the place of arms; and thence, after great 

 pomp and ceremonies of delivery, to the cathedral of 

 the city. All these, and other, honors and ceremo- 

 nies, say the historians of this great event, ' were attend- 

 ed by the ecclesiastical and secular dignitaries, the pub- 

 lic bodies, and all the nobility and gentry of Havana, in 

 proof of the high estimation and respectful remembrance 

 in which they held the hero who had discovered the new 

 world, and had been the first to plant the standard of the 

 cross on that island. It is well oberved by a recent dis- 

 tinguished biographer of Columbus, that when we read 

 of the manner in which his remains were treated at San 

 Domingo, after an interval of nearly three hundred years ; 

 the most illustrious men striving who should pay them 

 most reverence ; ' we cannot but reflect that it was from 

 this very port he was carried off loaded with ignominious 

 chains, blasted apparently in fame and fortune, and fol- 

 lowed by the revilings of the rabble.' To that place, 

 too, it might be added, the venerable and noble adven- 

 turer returned, upon his last voyage, to be refused ad- 

 mittance even to its harbor. ' Such honors, it is true, 

 are nothing to the dead, nor can they atone to the heart, 

 now dust and ashes, for all the wrongs and sorrows it may 

 have suffered : but they speak volumes of comfort to the 

 illustrious, yet slandered and persecuted being, encour- 

 aging them bravely to bear with present injuries, by show- 

 ing them how true merit outlives all calumny, and re- 

 ceives its glorious reward in the admiration of after ages.' 



