210 
DliliXlsnED rOrULATIOIf OF CITDA, 
if, foi mstauce, it coiifcamed as many inliabitanls as were 
found there by the English in 1762. The first travellers 
M ere easily deceived by the crowds which the appearance of 
European vessels _ brought together on some points of the 
coast. Now, the island of Cuba, with the same cituJades and 
present, had not in 1762 more 
than 200,000 inhabitants ; and yet, among a people treated 
like slaves, exposed to the violence and brutality of their 
masters, to excess of labour, want of nourishment, and the 
ravages of the small.Mx,-forty.two years would not suffice 
to obliterate all but the remembrance of their misfortunes 
on the eartli. In several of the Lesser Antilles, the popu- 
lation diminishes under English domination five and six per 
cent annually; at Cuba, more than eight per cent. ; but the 
annihilation ot 200,000 in forty-two years, supposes an 
annual loss of twcnty-six per cent., a loss scarcely credible, 
although we may suppose that the mortality of the natives 
ot Cuba was much greater than that of negroes boimht at a 
very high price. ° 
In studying the history of the island, we observe that the 
Balboa discovered this black tribe in the Isthmus of Darien. “That 
nHoId^^bni « Gomara, “ entered the province of Quareca : he found 
Ked this lord whence he had reeeived them ; who replied, that men of 
that colour lived near the place, with whom they were constantly at 
•’ ’ • These negroes,” adds Gomara, “ exactly resemble 
hose of Guinea ; and no others have since been seen in .America (en las 
Iiidias yo pieuso que no se ban visto negros despues.”! The <>assa?e is 
very remarkable. Hypotheses were formed in tL sixteenth century! as 
now ; and Petrus Martyr imagined that these men seen by Balboa, (the 
ImThe'n 9 infested the seas, and 
had been shipwrecked on the coast of America. But the negroes of Sou- 
dan aie not piiates ; and it is easier to conceive that Esquimaux, in their 
boats of skins, may ho-e gone to Europe, than the Africans to Darien. 
1 liose learned spectators who believe in a mixture of the PolynesiSns with 
the Americans, rather consider the Quarecas as of the race of Papuans, 
Philippines. Tropical migrations from west 
0 east, fiom the most western part of Polynesia to the Isthmus of Darien, 
present great difficulties, although the winds blow during whole weeks 
Bom tke nes.. Above all, it is essential to know whether the Quarecas 
weie really like the negroes of Soudan, as Gomara asserts, orwhetlier they 
were only a race of very dark Indians (with smooth and gio.ssy hair), who 
from time to time, before 1192. infested the coasts of the island of 11 ay tv 
which has become m our days the domain of Ethiopians. 
