42 ST NICOTINE 



can say that in his retirement he did not take that step? 

 Las Casas speaks so slightingly of his work as to say that it 

 contains almost as many lies as pages. Las Casas, the 

 renowned friend and protector of the poor oppressed 

 Indians, could certainly speak with confidence on matters 

 relating to the West India Islands. He had gone to the 

 colony in the train of Nicolas de Ovando in 1502, and 

 settled in Cuba as parish priest and vicar-apostolic of the 

 islands. Possibly his intimate knowledge of the cruelties 

 practised by his countrymen on the unoffending natives and 

 their insatiable greed of gold, had turned him against all 

 highly-placed officials in the colonies. He agrees with 

 Oviedo, however, in dislike of tobacco-smoking. He says : 

 ' 1 cannot see what benefit can be derived from it. ... 

 However extensive it may be in other countries (and com- 

 mon no doubt it is there) the habit has become so general 

 in this [Spain] that, to the discredit of parents, it is even 

 followed by children. . . . The eternal cigar is seen in the 

 mouths of old and young, even in that of the ragged 

 urchin.' 



The third voyage of Columbus to the Far West, resulting 

 in the discovery of the South American continent, brought 

 the Spaniards into contact with new races well advanced in 

 the arts of civilisation as compared with the condition of 

 the inhabitants of the islands, and opened the way for 

 intercourse and the development of mutual interests of no 

 common order. What use they made of this brilliant 

 opening, leading to the conquest of Mexico and Peru, is 

 told in the fascinating pages of Prescott. Well might the 

 eyes of the Spaniards be dazzled by the splendours they 

 beheld in the palace of the great Montezume, where, on the 

 occasion of their reception by the Emperor, cigars were 

 handed to the guests inserted in tubes of richly-carved gold, 



