The Deluge

The DelugeLike many unschooled peoples, the Antillean tribes had their legend of a time when the earth was covered by a flood. The island of St. Thomas was one of the first to rise out of the sea. The Haytiens said that the deluge did not subside and that the present islands are the summits of mountains that formerly towered to a great height above the plains. Far back in the days when people lived more simply, and white men, with their abominable contrivings for work, had not even been invented, acaciqueor chief of their island killed his son, who had tried to harm him, albeit when the lad was dead a natural affection prompted the father to clean his bones and conceal them in a gourd. Some time afterwards thecaciqueand his wife opened this vegetable tomb, to look on the mortal relics of their child, when a number of fish jumped out. Believing that he now had in the gourd a magic receptacle, from which he could take food at any time, the chief placed it on his roof, where mischief-makers might not reach it. While absent on a hunting-trip his four surviving sons took down the gourd to see what peculiar properties it had, and why it had been thus set apart. In passing it from one to the other it fell and was broken into little pieces. Instantly a vast quantity of water gushed from it, increasing in volume every instant. The water arose so that it reached their knees, and they had to climb the hills.Whales, sharks, porpoises, dolphins, and smaller creatures came swimming forth, and the flow of the water never ceased until the whole world was flooded, as we see it now, for the ocean came from that gourd.How Spaniards were Found to be MortalThe first Spaniards to reach the American islands were everywhere greeted as heavenly visitors, and the natives would not have been astonished had the caravels spread their sails—their wings, as they first were called—and flown into the clouds, carrying Columbus and his wrangling, jealous, sensual, gold-greedy company with him. Afterward they would have been more astonished than sorry. When the white men discovered this simple faith among the savages they encouraged it, for it induced the Indians to give up their wives, daughters, houses, weapons, and, above all else, their gold, to the strangers. The little bells and beads they gave in return were treasured because of their celestial origin and adored as fervently as the bones of saints are adored in some of the European churches. Everywhere and always the demand was for gold, and in the belief that the supply was going to last forever, Spain began to ruin herself with more industry than she had ever shown in peaceful callings. Her wars, her splendors, her vanities, her neglect of education and morality, bore their fruit when shepulled her flag down from the staff on Havana’s Moro, and gave up her claims to the last foot of land in the Western world.Ponce de Leon permitted the fiction that the Spaniards were angels—save the mark!—for it smoothed his progress in stripping the Porto Ricans of their poor little possessions, taking their lands for settlement, foraging over the island, forcing his religion upon them, and compelling them to serve him as miners, carriers, farmers, fishermen, and laborers. Many died because it was thought to be cheaper to work them to death and get fresh ones than to feed them. After a time the Indians began to have doubts, and when the friars enlarged on the glories of heaven, and described it as the abode of Spaniards, more of them than Hatuey were anxious to be allowed to go to the other place. They did not at first dare to attack the intruders, for what could men avail against gods, and of what use were spears and clubs against their thunderous arms and smashing missiles?As the aggressions increased and became less and less endurable, Chief Agueynaba resolved, out of the soreness of his heart, to test this reputed immortality of his guests. A messenger, one Salzedo, was to be sent away from San Juan on some official errand, with a little company of natives as freighters and servants. This was Agueynaba’s chance. He ordered his men to slip Salzedo into a river and hold him under water for a time. If he was an immortal this would not hurt him, and if he died, why—theywould try very hard to bear up under the loss. While crossing the river—the spot is still shown—the men who bore Salzedo on their shoulders pitched him off and detained him beneath the surface for a couple of hours; then, fearing that he might be still alive and vicious, they put him on a bank and howled apologies to his remains for three days. By that time there was no longer a doubt about his deadness. Reports of this discovery traversed the island with the speed of a South American mail service, so that within a week people even forty miles away had heard about it. Thus encouraged to resistance by the discovery that white men were mortal, the populace fell upon their persecutors and troubled them, although after one defeat the Spaniards rallied and drove the Indians back to the mines.PonceWhen Ponce de Leon visited and conquered Porto Rico he heard of the elixir of life. It may not have been among the springs of that island, but the natives had a faith in it and some of them referred it to the Bahamas. Their possible reason for this was to persuade the white men to go there and look for it, for they were not popular in Porto Rico, and this was the more to be regretted in Ponce’s case, because he was far from popular at home. At the court of Ferdinand and Isabella was a page who was handsome, spirited, and saucy. Oneof the daughters of the royal pair, wearied with the forms and ceremonies of her state, which, in the most punctilious court in Europe, were especially trying, found means to converse with this well-appearing, quick-witted scamp. A tattling courtier, recalling afaux pasof the last queen, and desiring no more scandals, reported that the princess had been seen to smile on the youngster. No guilt was proven upon him, but handsome pages were ill-chosen company for young women of blue blood.Ponce de Leon was the page, and he was sent to the New World to discover something to the advantage of his own modesty, and incidentally to accumulate for shipment anything that might be useful to the Spanish treasury. He landed in Boriquen, as Porto Rico was then called, and began a general subjugation and slaughter of the natives. Some were slain in battle, but thousands were carried away and made to work in mines and on distant plantations, as slaves, until their health was destroyed, and they, too, were no longer an obstacle to Spanish control, though the lack of their hands was a hindrance to Spanish enterprise. Ponce took his share of the gold and treasure he had forced these unfortunates to supply, and went back to Spain with it. Sea air had spoiled his complexion, fighting had roughened his manners, slave-driving had made his voice coarse. Possibly, also, his princess had recovered from her disappointment. Maybe she had been married off to some nobody of Portugal, or France, or Austria, for statereasons, and had entered on the usual loveless life of royalty. Or she may have beguiled her maidenly solitude by drinking much wine of Oporto, Madeira, and Xeres with her dinner, thereby acquiring that amplitude of girth, that ruddiness of countenance, and that polish of nose, which add so little to romance. At all events, we hear nothing more of the affair.In the course of years Ponce took to himself the gout, rheumatism, dyspepsia, and a few such matters, and he scolded his dresser more than usual because his clothes did not fit at the waist as they had done, once. He parted his hair with a towel, and it was grizzled where it curled about his neck and temples. Then he recalled the tales the Boriqueños had told of the bright waters that gushed from the earth amid banks of flowers,—waters so sweet that who drank would drink again, and with every draught would throw off years and pain until at last he was a youth once more,—a youth with hot blood, sparkling eyes, lithe muscles; a youth who saw the world full of beauty and adventure. Ah, to be once more as he was when the princess beamed on him; to throw away his cares, his ails, his conscience, his regrets; to sing and dance, to ruffle it with other cavaliers, to dice, to drink, to feast, to win the smiles of ladies! It was a joy worth trying to attain.He sailed once more, an older, sober man. He discovered Florida, bathed in its springs, drank from its flower-edged streams, but to no avail. Bimini,the place of the living waters, evaded him. Boriquen, renamed Porto Rico, could offer no more. But, though his living presence passed, the first building on the island—the White House, near San Juan—remains, and he left his name in the town that was first among the Antillean cities to raise the flag of a republic that should wave over the continent he had helped to discover and colonize:—the city of Ponce.Water CavesAs in most of the Spanish American countries, so in Porto Rico, ghosts are common,—so common that in some towns the people hardly turn to look at them; and if on a wild night in the hurricane season they hear them gibbering at their doors, they patter anaveor throw a piece of harness at the disturbance, and sleep again. Ponce, for instance, has a number of these spooks, such as the man who searches for his hidden money, and the child with a snowy face that knocks on the panes, then stares fixedly in, with corpse eyes, at the windows. Best known among these supernatural citizens are two lovers who “spoon” on dark nights, and are faintly outlined on the landscape as figures of quivering, smoky blue. Their favorite haunt is their death-place, eight miles from Ponce, in a hollow among limestone hills, now environed by a coffee plantation. Here are found three basins—results of erosion, most likely—that are described as naturalbath-tubs. The middle and largest of these pools is partly filled with silt, probably occluding the entrance to a cavern which formerly opened into it, a fathom or so below the water-surface. This cave was the hiding-place of a native woman whose father had discovered her love for one of Ponce de Leon’s soldiers. He forbade her to have anything to do with the enemies of his country, enlarged on their rapacity, cruelty, and treachery, and tried to create in her a sense of shame that she should have chosen a Spaniard, instead of a Boriqueno chief, for a lover. There were no locksmiths in the Antilles for love to laugh at, but there were spears and knives to fear, and the young couple, who seemed to be inspired by genuine affection, met at this lonely spot to do their courting. On the least suspicion of a hostile approach, the maid could slip into the water, enter the cave, and wait for an hour or a day, until the intruder had retired. However it happened nobody could tell,—or would,—but the Spaniard was found drowned one morning in that pool. He may have been found waiting there, by the angry parent, thrown in, on general principles, and held to the bottom by his steel arms and armor; or he may have been trying to find the cave in which his charmer had secreted herself, and while so engaged may have bumped his head against the rocky wall and stunned himself, or he may have been a poor swimmer and lost his wits and his wind. At all events, drowned he was, and the dusky virgin who loved him, seeinghis form at the bottom of the water, sang her sorrow chant, dived in, and, holding to his body, perished wilfully at his side. Their love endures, and that is why their luminous shadows sit at the brink of the pool, with locked arms and meeting lips, to the disgust of voting women and confirmed bachelors.This legend, with variants, is found in many parts of the world. There are two or three instances of it in the Hawaiian islands, and a tradition pertaining to Hayti is worth quoting here, as it refers to the same period and illustrates the same enmity between the white and native races. Near the city of San Domingo is, or was, a “water cave,” so named because the entrance to it was several feet below the lake whose shore it undermines. When the young half-breed, Diaz, returned from Spain to his native island of Hispaniola in 1520, his mother, Zameaca, queen of the Ozamas, had disappeared, possibly killed outright by the Spaniards, or more slowly killed by enslavement at the mines in vainly trying to satisfy the rapacity of the white race for gold. Diaz, though partly of Spanish blood, was allied in his sympathies to the Indians. Hence, they planned to make him ruler. Their conspiracy was quelled for the time being, with such brutality that those natives who escaped death hated their tyrants with a deeper hatred than ever, and fixed them the more strongly in their resolution to be avenged. The leading chiefs and warriors of the Ozamas took refuge in the water cave, spying on their enemies and going about to make converts among the islandersat night. It was not long before the watchful Spaniards discovered that mischief was afoot, and there were reasons for believing that the chiefs had their hiding place not many miles from town. By following various suspects into the country, and noticing the time and way of their return, they became convinced that the leaders of the rebellion were somewhere near the lake.A young woman, a slave in the family of the Spanish governor, was so often absent on mysterious errands that the authorities at last fixed on her as the one most likely to betray her countrymen. She was won to their purpose through her vanity. Her mistress had a comb of elaborate and curious workmanship, and to have one like it was the principal object in her existence. The governor told her that she should have this priceless treasure itself if she would tell him where the chiefs were meeting. To this act of treachery she finally agreed on condition that her lover, who was one of the chiefs, should be pardoned. That evening she carried bread and fruit to the lake, and sitting on the bank sang loudly for some minutes. The Spanish soldiers, who were watching from the shrubbery, were astonished to see a man rise like a seal from the water, swim to the shore, take the parcel from the girl’s hands, exchange a few words with her, and disappear again beneath the surface. The song was a signal for one of the men to come out and receive the food, and it was heard through a crevice in the cave roof.Next day the girl sang again, and the whole company left the cave. They had no sooner gained the shore than the Spaniards sprang from the shrubbery and surrounded them. As they were led away to death, one of the chiefs levelled his finger at the girl and said, “I am going to a land of peace. You will never find the way to it.” Her lover cast her off with bitter reproaches. Then, as the murderous volley pealed across the fields, and the rebellion was ended, her heart broke. She still sits at the lakeside in the evening, weeping over her comb.How a Dutchman Helped the SpaniardsHad any Dutchman been charged with intending akindnessto the dons when his country was smarting under the Spanish scourge he would have offered the life of some distant relative to disprove the accusation. Without a guess that he could be injuring his own land and enriching that of his enemy, an innocent magistrate of Amsterdam did that for which he would afterward have submitted to the abuse of his friends, and if sackcloth and ashes had been in vogue he would have worn them. It all came about through his wish to be pleasant to a Frenchman, the same being Louis XIV. He sent to this monarch a curiosity in the form of a young coffee-tree, thinking, no doubt, that a warm corner could be found for it in the Jardindes Plantes among the orchids and cacti, and little recking that Louis had a Spanish father-in-law. At that time Holland enjoyed, in her colonies, almost a monopoly of the coffee trade of the world, but that one little tree broke her monopoly, just as one little leak in her dikes led to the eating away of miles ofearthenwall and an in-rush and devastation of the sea.For Louis was more clever than some other kings, almost clever enough to have been in trade, or else he had smart advisers. He had slips cut from the coffee tree, and ere many moons had passed a promising dozen of young plants were ready for shipment to Martinique, the new French colony in the Antilles. A botanist was sent in charge of them, it being the purpose of Louis to turn the island into a coffee plantation and be free of obligation to Holland. The voyage was long, because of head winds and storms, and the precious plants were in peril. Long before the American shores were reached the water supply had run low, and there was much suffering; yet the loyal botanist gave up half of his daily allowance in order that his coffee-trees should live. Salt water would have killed them, and in those days ships had no distilling apparatus. Martinique was reached in safety, however, the little trees struck their roots into congenial soil, and thus the seeds, such as first yielded their aroma to a surprised and gratified Abyssinian chief more than a thousand years before, now spring from the strong earth of the Western world.Whether Spaniards stole some of these trees, or bought them, or whether they got away by accident, certes, they reached Porto Rico, and so became a source of pleasure and profit to people whom the Dutchman did not have in mind when he made his little gift to King Louis. It is believed that all the coffee raised in Batavia for the Dutch also grew from a handful of seeds that had been sent from Arabia to Java. And, oh, that ever the time should have come when France had to buy coffee from her own plant in Porto Rico, and send to that same island for logwood to make claret with,—the kind she sells to New York for bohemian tables d’hote!The Ghost of San GeronimoThe castle of San Geronimo, San Juan de Porto Rico, was founded a century ago. It occupies a rocky point at the east end of San Juan Island, and year by year had been strengthened until, when the American ships appeared in the offing, it was thought important enough to garrison. Six guns were emplaced, two other gun mounts were found by our troops when they entered, and a hole was discovered extending from a dungeon fifteen feet toward the breastworks. This had been freshly dug, and, it is believed, was devised for the storage of explosives, that the citadel might be blown up when the boys in blue entered to take possession. That the fort was abandoned without resorting tothis revengeful and unmilitary act may be due to the ghost. He would naturally be in evidence at such a time, and would do what he could to thwart the schemes of his enemies. For he gave his body to the worms fifty years or more ago. In the flesh he was a revolutionist, and had been dreaming vain things about liberty for his beloved island. It is not recorded that he ever harmed any one, or that his little insurrection attained the dignity of anything more than a rumor and an official chill, but the Spaniards caught him, threw him into the dark prison of this castle, and after he had undergone hunger, thirst, and illness, they went through their usual forms of trial and condemned him to death. This among the civilized would have meant that he would be sent to the gallows or the garrote; but this victim was alleged to have accomplices, and quite likely he was suspected of having a small fund; for the first thing to do when you overthrow a government, or want to, is to pass the hat. To secure the names of his fellow-conspirators, but more especially their money, the revolutionist was therefore consigned to the torture chamber, where the rack, the thumb-screw, the hot irons, the whip, and other survivals of the Inquisition were applied. When the officers had extorted what they wanted, or had made sure there was nothing to extort, the poor, white wreck of a human being was delivered by the judges to an executioner, and a merciful death was inflicted.Shortly after this occurrence the officers of the San Geronimo garrison began to request transfers, and the social set that had been formed in and near the castle was broken up. Gradually the troops thinned away, and although the works were kept in moderate repair and occasionally enlarged, the regular force was finally withdrawn, and even the solitary keepers who were left in charge died unaccountably. This was because the ghost of the tortured one pervaded its damp rooms and breathed blights and curses on the occupants. Its appearance was always heralded by a clatter of hoofs on the stone bridge leading into the court. The on-rush of spectre horses is variously explained, some believing that the dead man is leading an assault on the fort, others wondering if it may not be a conscience-smitten governor hurrying to rescue or reprieve his victim, and arriving too late,—a theory quite generally rejected on the ground that there never was that kind of a Spanish governor.An American officer, who took up his home in San Geronimo after the occupation, was disturbed for three successive nights by the ghost, and on learning the tradition of the place he investigated the palace and brought to light the torture chamber with its rows of hooks and rings and chains about the walls. The piercing of its roof, so that the sun came in and the ghosts and malaria went out, the removal of the grim relics of mediævalism, the cleaning and whitewashing of the apartments, haveprobably induced the spectre to take up his quarters elsewhere, for his old haunts are hardly recognizable, and he can have no grudge against the soldiers of a republic who carried out his plans with a perfection and promptness of which he could not have dreamed.The climate of the West Indies has ever been favorable to the preservation of spirits, and this haunted castle of San Juan has counterparts in the island, and in other islands, and the ghosts are not always victims of the Spaniards, either. The appearance of spectres in the New World was almost contemporary with Columbus. Indeed, one of the most startling of supernatural appearances occurred in the town he founded,—the town of Isabella, Hayti, the first white man’s city in America. It was created by the great navigator on his second voyage, but it remained for only a few years on the map. The dons whom he brought with him refused to work, even when the colony was starving, and reported him in Spain as a tyrant for asking them to put up their own shelters, cook their own food, and grind their own flour. They would not even work in the mines where gold could be seen in the river sands, because they had expected to pick up the metal in lumps, or force it from the natives in such quantities that each adventurer might return with a bushel. Hardship, illness, short commons, the need of occasional labor, the heart-breaks over the gold failure, the retaliationsof the natives for the cruelties and injustices of the invaders, led to the rapid decline of the city of Isabella. Its foundations may still be visible; at least they were a few years ago; but it is peopled only by ghosts. Some years after it had been deserted, two Spaniards, who had been hunting in that part of the island, entered its ruined streets. They had heard from the Indians of strange, booming voices that echoed among its dead houses, but had dismissed this tale as invention or fancy. The sun was low and mists were gathering. As the hunters turned a corner they were astonished to see a company of cavaliers drawn up in double rank, as if for parade, sword on hip, plumed hats aslant, big booted, leather jacketed, grim, and silent. The two men asked whence they had come. The cavaliers spoke no word, but all together lifting their hats in salute, lifted their heads off with them, then melted into air. They were the dead of the fated town. The two spectators fainted with horror, and did not recover their peace of mind in many days.Police Activity in HumacaoFor three centuries a Spanish convict station was kept in Porto Rico. The unpleasant and undesirable found, not a welcome here, but a more congenial company than in the home land. Life was easier because one needed less food and clothes, andthey were furnished by the authorities, anyway. What with the convicts and discontented slaves, it is a wonder that any sort of comfort or safety existed on the island, and especially that so much of pleasant social life was to be found in the cities. Those who knew Porto Rico in those days, however, say that class distinctions were not sharply marked; that the master was kind to the slave, and the slave felt as if he were a member of his master’s family, rather than a dependent; that the two were often seen at the cockpit sitting elbow to elbow, kneeling side by side in the same church, greeting the same friends or cracking the heads of the same enemies before the church doors at Epiphany, and in the humbler homes sitting at the same table.In those simple times the robber gangs were a great vexation. Killing was something to grow used to, and a disagreement over cards was liable to result in having one’s head snipped off by a machete; but to be robbed of one’s machete, or of one’s jug of rum, or of one’s only trousers, was a sad affliction, and soldiers and police were as active as Spanish functionaries could persuade themselves to be, in running down—or walking down—these outlaws. It is said that the detectives were especially amusing. They would go about in such obvious disguises, with misfit wigs, window-glass spectacles, and the costumes of priests or notaries, that a robber could barely keep his countenance when he met them in the street. The thief alwaysescaped, either through the incompetence of the officers, or by sharing his profits with them.But there was one fellow who made such trouble that the police began to chafe beneath the public criticism. To impugn their honor did not hurt them much, though they ruffled a good deal under it, but to threaten them with reduction of pay or removal was a serious matter; so the chief of the San Juan constabulary bestirred himself, after a particularly daring robbery had occurred in his bailiwick, the rogue making off with six thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry. He got safely away from town and was traced to Humacao, where his footprints were found leading to the door of a small, tumble-down, deserted house, and none of these prints could be seen with toes pointing away from it. The chief dismissed his men and prepared to conduct a siege. He had a dagger, a machete, two pistols, and a gun, with a box of ammunition. Thus equipped he went to the front door, gave it a sounding whack with the flat of his machete, and bawled, “Open, in the name of the law!”There was no response, so he struck his weapon impatiently against the panels two or three times and called on the bandit to emerge and give himself up. Again there was no reply. A bolder move was necessary. He pushed open the window, crouching down outside, that he might not become a target for the fellow, who was probably lurking in the dark interior, and after calling on him for a thirdtime to appear and go to jail, he thrust his firearms in and began to blaze in all directions over the floor.After emptying the pistols and gun he shouted, “If you don’t come out I’ll blow you to the bad place, for I have one hundred and fifty cartridges here, and I can surely shoot you.”All this time the robber had been lying on the floor, just below the window, very flat and very still. As the chief did not show himself to take aim, but reached up from his kneeling position and fired at random, the bold, bad man in-doors began to feel a return of confidence. He waited until a second fusillade was over, when he slipped softly through the back door, went around to the front, waited until a third volley had been fired, when he pounced on the chief from behind, and in a trice had a stout rope around him. In a few seconds more he had the astonished and indignant functionary tied securely to one of the posts of the veranda. Then, calmly taking possession of the weapons, he lifted his hat, wished the officer a very good day and a pleasant siesta, and sauntered off to some other town where the police were still less active.The Church in Porto RicoIf the Spanish colonies have been immoral, it must be granted that they have been religious. This fact has made them easier to govern, for the words of the priests and friars have been accepted asdivinely inspired at times when, as a matter of fact, they have been inspired only by the governor or the garrison colonel. The church in the colonies is nothing like the modern and American institution that we know. It is a survival from the Middle Ages. Yet it has shown shrewdness in Porto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines, its prosperity proving that the Spaniard can be a thrifty mortal whether he wears a monkish cowl or a military uniform. Much money has been demanded by the church, but much of it has been honestly spent in the beautifying of altars and the dressing of the statues. Our Lady of the Remedies, in the Church of La Providencia, San Juan, for example, wears a cloak worth fifteen hundred dollars, and is emblazoned with twenty thousand dollars’ worth of jewels; but then, she is the patron of the island. The priests have been quick to see an advantage in benefits or disasters and have often impressed the natives by lessons drawn from natural phenomena. Thus, in 1867, a conspiracy for the overthrow of Spanish rule had been organized, and violence was hourly expected: but on the eve of an uprising the island was shaken by an earthquake. The priests made the most of this, assuring the natives that it was a warning from heaven never to interfere with Spaniards; so the insurrectos stealthily laid down their arms and stole away to their various substitutes for employment, leaving their Lexington unfought.In one way this willingness to keep out of fights hasbeen a bad thing for the island, because insurrection became a matter of business with some of the natives. They used it as a mode of blackmail. These insurrectos would throw a wealthy planter into a state of alarm by pretending to hold meetings on his premises. He knew that if the authorities got wind of this it might go hard with him, for if he were suspected of being a member of a lodge of the White Saber or the Red Hand, it could mean imprisonment, perhaps death; so he paid the revolution something to move on and occur on some other man’s land. By levying thus on fear and policy a few members of an alleged junta managed to live quite comfortably without work, and it is whispered that the padres of certain villages received their share of the reluctant tributes.Porto Rico has been the place of abode of some noted fathers of the church, including two martyrs who were canonized by Pius IX. as saints: Charles Spinola and Jerome de Angelis. They left Portugal for Goa in 1596, but having been blown far out of their course, they put in at this island to repair their ship, and there for two months they preached with success. On their return to Lisbon they were captured by English pirates, who treated them kindly, however, and set them safely down in London. They reached Portugal eventually, and ended their work in Japan, where the people killed them. These and other saints receive the prayers of the people on stated occasions, for in Porto Rico the saints havenot only their special days, but their special crops, and guard them from special injuries. Thus, the farmer prays to St. James, it is said, when he asks for deliverance from tobacco-worms, while he must address St. Martial if he wants to free his field from ants.Of the holy hermits who have resided on the island, several have dwelt in the caves where Caribs or Arawaks buried their dead, but the best-known shrine is that of Hormigueros. The Church of Our Lady of Monserrate, which crowns a hill and is a conspicuous landmark, is said to have been copied from the chapel of a Benedictine monastery in Barcelona, which is famous in Spain for its statue of the Virgin, carved by St. Luke and carried to Barcelona in the year 50 by St. Peter. The Monserrate church was founded in 1640 by a poor farmer. He had been ploughing over the hill-top, though weak with fever, and before he could finish his work he fell to the ground exhausted. After he had partly recovered, and had gone back to the plough, he turned a tile up from the earth, on which was engraved a portrait of the Virgin, and no sooner had he taken this object into his hands than his pain, his fever, his lassitude disappeared. Convinced that the relic was sacred, he carried it to his priest, and on that very day he gave the land he had ploughed for a votive church. It has become the best known sanctuary in Porto Rico, for the large painting of the Virgin, copied from the smaller portrait on the tile, is just as potentas the original in curing diseases. In the last half-century a hundred miracles have been performed, and the silver and golden arms, legs, ears, eyes, fingers, feet, livers, and hearts that have been given to the church, in thanks and testimony, amount in value to sixty thousand dollars; for a patient who has been cured or helped is expected to send a little model, in precious metal, of the part of him that needed mending. At intervals these offerings are melted up for the altar service and decorations, and few churches in America have such resplendent candlesticks, chalices, draperies and vestments. The altar is of silver plates, and the gold cross upon it weighs thirteen pounds. Pilgrims to Hormigueros go from all parts of the West Indies. They are lodged, free of charge, in an old house behind the church, each cripple or invalid receiving a bed and chair, but no food. The pilgrims must supply their own sustenance. On entering the church, in procession, they are sprinkled with water from the Jordan, and then kneel before the cross, where the cures are worked.The MermaidsIn dime museums and county fairs one may still find among the “attractions” a mermaid, dried and stuffed, consisting of the upper half of a monkey artlessly joined to the lower half or two-thirds of a codfish, the monkey’s head usually adorned with a handful of oakum or horse-hair. When this kindof thing was first exhibited by the lamented P. T. Barnum, it is just possible that some bumpkin really believed it to be a mermaid, but the invention has become so common of late that it is found in the curio-shops of every town, and as an eye-catching device is often put into show-cases by some merchant who deals in anything rather than mermaids. Trite and ridiculous as this patchwork appears, it symbolizes a belief of full three thousand years. Men have always been prone to fill with imaginations what they have never sounded with their senses, and it is to this tendency we owe poetry and the arts. The sea was a mystery, and is so still. It was easy to people its twilight depths with forms of grace and beauty and power, for surely the denizens taken from it were strange enough to warrant strange beliefs.And so the old faith in men and women who lived beneath the water was passed down from generation to generation, and from race to race, changing but little from age to age. Ulysses stopped the ears of his crew with wax that they should not hear the sirens luring them toward the rocks as his ship sailed by, and knowing the magic of their song had himself bound to the mast, so, hearing the ravishing music, he might not escape if he would. In a later day we hear of the Lorelei singing on her rock, striking chords on her golden harp, and, as the raptured fisherman steered close, with eyes filled by her beauty and ears by her music, he had a moment’sconsciousness of a skull leering at him and harsh laughter clattering in echoes along the shore; then his boat struck and filled, and the dark flood curtained off the sky. Wagner has made familiar the legend of the Rhine daughters, singing impossibly under the river as they swim about the reef of gold,—the treasure stolen by the gnome, Alberich, who in that act brought envy, strife, greed, and injustice into the world, and accomplished the destruction of the gods themselves. The wild tales of Britain and Brittany, of thefts and revenges by the sea-creatures, are among the oldest of their myths, and when we cross to our side of the sea, the ocean people are close in our wake and they follow us through the fresh waters and far out in the Pacific.Among the Antilles, as in the South Seas, the tritons blow their conchs and shake their shaggy heads, while the daughters of the deep gather, at certain seasons, on the water, or about some favorite rock, and sing. Always, in Eastern versions of the myth, there is music, save in the case of Melusina, who became a half fish only on Saturdays, when her husband was supposed not to be watching, and this music follows the myth around the world. Among the vague traditions of certain Alaskan Indians is one of an immigration from Asia, under lead of “a creature resembling a man, with long, green hair and beard, whose lower part was a fish; or, rather, each leg a fish.” He charmed them so with his singing that they followed him, unconsciously,and reached America. We find in Canada the tale of a dusky Undine, a soulless water sprite, who, through love of a mortal, became human. Some of the beings of the sea were of more than human power and authority,—gods, in fact; barbarian Neptunes. Such was the Pacific god, Rau Raku, who, being entangled in a fishing-net, was lugged to the surface, sputtering tremendously. Yet he had no grudge against the fisherman. That trembling unfortunate was too small for his revenge. He would devastate the whole earth to which he had been thus unceremoniously dragged, and, bidding his captor take himself away while he made trouble, he deluged the globe until all upon it had perished, except the fish, the fisherman, and a few land animals that the sole human survivor had taken to a lofty island with him.The mermaid of story was a damsel fair to view, until she had risen from the waves so as to show her fish-like ending. It was her habit to sit on sunny beaches, comb her golden hair with a golden comb, and sing delightfully, though her wilder sisters would perch on juts of rock on lonely islands and scream in frightening ways when a gale was coming. When the sea-maidens went ashore they sometimes met sailors and fishermen, and if they liked these strangers a frank avowal of love was made; for it is always leap year in the ocean. It was a most uncomfortable position for a mortal to be placed in, especially one who had a wife waiting for him athome, because if their addresses were rejected the mermaids were liable to throw stones, and always with fatal results; or they would brew mists, and set loose awful storms; yet, if the man who inspired this affection was not coy, and yielded to one of these slippery denizens, she dragged him under the sea forthwith, unless he could persuade her to compromise on a cave or a lonely rock as a home, for it is reputed that mortals have formally wedded them and raised amphibious families. On the Isle of Man they tell of one caught in a net, who was woman to the waist and fish as to the rest of her. As she sulked in captivity, refusing to eat or speak,—perhaps they forgot to offer raw fish for her supper,—it was decided to let her escape; and as she wriggled over the beach she was heard to tell her people (in Manx?), as they arose to greet her, that the earth-men did nothing wonderful except to throw away water in which they had boiled eggs!The home of the mermaids was at the bottom of the deep. A diver, who said he had reached it, reported a region of clear water, lighted from below by great, white stones and pyramids of crystal. These haunts contained bowers of coral, gardens of bright sea weeds and mosses, tables and chairs of amber, floors of iridescent shell and pearls, gems strewn about the jasper grottoes,—diamonds, rubies, topazes,—and the sea people had combs and ornaments of gold. Columbus was disappointed in the mermaids that he saw in the Caribbean. Theywere not, to his eyes, so handsome as the romancers had alleged, nor were their voices sweet. The doubters claim that he was asleep when the mermaids appeared, and that he saw nothing but the sea cow, or manatee, which is neither tuneful nor pretty.The AboriginesIn following the southern coast of Cuba, Columbus supposed he was working toward India. He died ignorant of the fact that he had discovered a new world, and he gave up the exploration of this island when almost in sight of open water at its western end. Of the first inhabitants of Cuba (called by some Macaca, and by others Caboi, “land of the dead,” for the people killed their prisoners), little is known, for they were exterminated as a distinct race, and their few relics were disregarded as worthless or destroyed as idolatrous. It is believed, however, that they had some knowledge of the arts; they worked gold into ornaments, and copper and stone into tools and weapons, and they wore helmets of feathers, like those of the Hawaiian chiefs. Near Bayamo have been found farming tools, painted pottery, and little statuettes supposed to represent gods. Their houses were hardly more than shelters, frames of bamboo or light boughs, though they were prettily environed by walks and flowers, and their clothing—sometimes of fur, oftener of leaves and coarse cloth—was of the scantiest. Heavy dresses in a tropic country, or in a temperate country in tropic weather, are manifestly absurd.As on the other Antilles, the people of Cuba were brown, broad, straight-haired, flat-faced, and decorated with slashes and tattooing. They were singularly mild, honest, and trusting. They were frightened by the Spanish ships, believing them to be great birds that had come down from the sky, bringing the white adventurers in their brave array; but when Columbus had sent a few beads and hawks’ bells to them, they expressed their confidence and delight in a hundred ways, swam and rowed about his caravel offering fish and fruit, not in trade, but as gifts, and when a crowd of hungry sailors ashore invited themselves to a feast that had been prepared for a religious ceremony the Indians made no objection, because they could prepare one like it by another night’s work. Food, indeed, was free to whoso needed it, like air and water, and no stranger needed to go hungry. While the Spaniards did little to invite their confidence, were insolent to most other people and even to one another, the Indians set an example of charity in conduct and in faith. The dons were intolerant of all religions except their own, whereas the Cubans were quick to realize that the performance of the mass was of some sacred significance, and they preserved a reverent attitude throughout a ceremony whose details they did not understand. When missionarywork had fairly begun it is said that some Spaniards drove Indians into the water, forcibly baptized them, then cut their throats that they might not repent their acceptance of the true faith. In their own belief there appeared to be a purgatory and a paradise, but no hell or devil; and, as beliefs reveal the character of the people who hold them, it speaks well for the Cubans that the grewsome images invoked by certain mediæval theologians had never been created in their more generous imaginations. When a soul left the body it had two journeys before it: one to a dismal place, where the cruel and unjust awaited; the other to a fair land, like the best of earth, where all was pleasant and peaceful; for, in spite of the warlike undertakings made necessary by irruptions of the fierce Caribs, these people held to peace as the highest good.Of these Indians hardly a dozen are remembered by their names, but the chief Hatuey was revered among them for his courage and his military skill. He had fled from Hayti to Cuba in a vain hope of escaping his white enemy, and counselled the natives to throw all their gold into the sea, that the Spanish might not linger on their coasts. He might have been the one who ordered gold to be melted and poured down the throats of his prisoners, that for one and the last time they might have enough. The Spaniards caught him and burned him to death at Baracoa. As he stood on the logs in chains, just before the flames were applied, the friars pressedabout him and earnestly advised him to become a Christian, that he might not be required to roast in hell, which would be worse than the torture he was about to endure, and which would last forever. If only he would be baptized he could go direct to heaven. “The white man’s heaven?” he asked. “Yes.” “Are there any Spaniards in that heaven?” “Oh, yes, many.” “Then light the fire.”Columbus was the more convinced that he had reached Asia because the name of one Cuban province, Mangon, he assumed to be Mangi, a rich district of China. That its people had tails, like monkeys, was nothing against this theory; that footprints of alligators should be the tracks of griffins, which had the bodies of lions and the wings and heads of eagles, was quite in order; but most convincing of all was the discovery by an archer, who had entered a wood in search of game, of thirty men with pale faces, armed with clubs and lances, and habited in white gowns, like friars. The man fled in fear. When his comrades returned with him to find this white company, not a human being appeared to them, and, except for the chatter of birds and the clicking of land-crabs as they scuttled over the stones, the place was still. The coast Indians were understood to say that among the mountains dwelt a chief whom they called a saint, who wore a flowing robe of white and never spoke aloud, ordering his subjects by signs. This was surely Prester John, the shadowy king of a shadowy kingdom, ofwhom much was said and written a few centuries ago. He was declared by one author to rule a part of India and was reputed to be a Nestorian priest who had made himself king of the Naymans. Other travellers placed him in China, Persia, and Timbuctoo. In a battle with the infidel Tartars Prester John mounted a number of bronze men on horseback, each figure belching clouds of smoke from a fire of punk within, and lashed the horses against the enemy, filling them with such terror, and so veiling in smoke the dash of his flesh and blood cavalry, that his victory was easy. So, it was a great satisfaction to Columbus to think that he had reached the confines of a Christian kingdom.While working through the thousand little islands off the southern coast of Cuba, that he called the Queen’s Gardens, Columbus found added reason for believing that this was the Asiatic shore, and he hoped shortly to reach Cipango, or Japan, where pearls and precious stones abounded, and where the king abode in a palace covered with plates of gold more than an inch thick. The attempts of the Mongols to overrun the Asian islands were defeated, because the Cipangalese were invulnerable, having placed between the skin and the flesh of their right arms a little stone that made them safe against swords, arrows, clubs, and slings. The people of Cuba fell too easy a prey to Spanish blades—of both sorts—to allow a belief like this to last long.That Columbus thought he was approaching theearthly paradise, the mountain-guarded Eden where our first parents lived, when he neared these lovely shores, inhaled the fragrance of fruits and flowers, heard the cries of birds and saw the flash of bright waters, is probable. That paradise he sought. The serpent of oppression and wrong has left it, and as America comes into her own, that paradise shall be.

The DelugeLike many unschooled peoples, the Antillean tribes had their legend of a time when the earth was covered by a flood. The island of St. Thomas was one of the first to rise out of the sea. The Haytiens said that the deluge did not subside and that the present islands are the summits of mountains that formerly towered to a great height above the plains. Far back in the days when people lived more simply, and white men, with their abominable contrivings for work, had not even been invented, acaciqueor chief of their island killed his son, who had tried to harm him, albeit when the lad was dead a natural affection prompted the father to clean his bones and conceal them in a gourd. Some time afterwards thecaciqueand his wife opened this vegetable tomb, to look on the mortal relics of their child, when a number of fish jumped out. Believing that he now had in the gourd a magic receptacle, from which he could take food at any time, the chief placed it on his roof, where mischief-makers might not reach it. While absent on a hunting-trip his four surviving sons took down the gourd to see what peculiar properties it had, and why it had been thus set apart. In passing it from one to the other it fell and was broken into little pieces. Instantly a vast quantity of water gushed from it, increasing in volume every instant. The water arose so that it reached their knees, and they had to climb the hills.Whales, sharks, porpoises, dolphins, and smaller creatures came swimming forth, and the flow of the water never ceased until the whole world was flooded, as we see it now, for the ocean came from that gourd.How Spaniards were Found to be MortalThe first Spaniards to reach the American islands were everywhere greeted as heavenly visitors, and the natives would not have been astonished had the caravels spread their sails—their wings, as they first were called—and flown into the clouds, carrying Columbus and his wrangling, jealous, sensual, gold-greedy company with him. Afterward they would have been more astonished than sorry. When the white men discovered this simple faith among the savages they encouraged it, for it induced the Indians to give up their wives, daughters, houses, weapons, and, above all else, their gold, to the strangers. The little bells and beads they gave in return were treasured because of their celestial origin and adored as fervently as the bones of saints are adored in some of the European churches. Everywhere and always the demand was for gold, and in the belief that the supply was going to last forever, Spain began to ruin herself with more industry than she had ever shown in peaceful callings. Her wars, her splendors, her vanities, her neglect of education and morality, bore their fruit when shepulled her flag down from the staff on Havana’s Moro, and gave up her claims to the last foot of land in the Western world.Ponce de Leon permitted the fiction that the Spaniards were angels—save the mark!—for it smoothed his progress in stripping the Porto Ricans of their poor little possessions, taking their lands for settlement, foraging over the island, forcing his religion upon them, and compelling them to serve him as miners, carriers, farmers, fishermen, and laborers. Many died because it was thought to be cheaper to work them to death and get fresh ones than to feed them. After a time the Indians began to have doubts, and when the friars enlarged on the glories of heaven, and described it as the abode of Spaniards, more of them than Hatuey were anxious to be allowed to go to the other place. They did not at first dare to attack the intruders, for what could men avail against gods, and of what use were spears and clubs against their thunderous arms and smashing missiles?As the aggressions increased and became less and less endurable, Chief Agueynaba resolved, out of the soreness of his heart, to test this reputed immortality of his guests. A messenger, one Salzedo, was to be sent away from San Juan on some official errand, with a little company of natives as freighters and servants. This was Agueynaba’s chance. He ordered his men to slip Salzedo into a river and hold him under water for a time. If he was an immortal this would not hurt him, and if he died, why—theywould try very hard to bear up under the loss. While crossing the river—the spot is still shown—the men who bore Salzedo on their shoulders pitched him off and detained him beneath the surface for a couple of hours; then, fearing that he might be still alive and vicious, they put him on a bank and howled apologies to his remains for three days. By that time there was no longer a doubt about his deadness. Reports of this discovery traversed the island with the speed of a South American mail service, so that within a week people even forty miles away had heard about it. Thus encouraged to resistance by the discovery that white men were mortal, the populace fell upon their persecutors and troubled them, although after one defeat the Spaniards rallied and drove the Indians back to the mines.PonceWhen Ponce de Leon visited and conquered Porto Rico he heard of the elixir of life. It may not have been among the springs of that island, but the natives had a faith in it and some of them referred it to the Bahamas. Their possible reason for this was to persuade the white men to go there and look for it, for they were not popular in Porto Rico, and this was the more to be regretted in Ponce’s case, because he was far from popular at home. At the court of Ferdinand and Isabella was a page who was handsome, spirited, and saucy. Oneof the daughters of the royal pair, wearied with the forms and ceremonies of her state, which, in the most punctilious court in Europe, were especially trying, found means to converse with this well-appearing, quick-witted scamp. A tattling courtier, recalling afaux pasof the last queen, and desiring no more scandals, reported that the princess had been seen to smile on the youngster. No guilt was proven upon him, but handsome pages were ill-chosen company for young women of blue blood.Ponce de Leon was the page, and he was sent to the New World to discover something to the advantage of his own modesty, and incidentally to accumulate for shipment anything that might be useful to the Spanish treasury. He landed in Boriquen, as Porto Rico was then called, and began a general subjugation and slaughter of the natives. Some were slain in battle, but thousands were carried away and made to work in mines and on distant plantations, as slaves, until their health was destroyed, and they, too, were no longer an obstacle to Spanish control, though the lack of their hands was a hindrance to Spanish enterprise. Ponce took his share of the gold and treasure he had forced these unfortunates to supply, and went back to Spain with it. Sea air had spoiled his complexion, fighting had roughened his manners, slave-driving had made his voice coarse. Possibly, also, his princess had recovered from her disappointment. Maybe she had been married off to some nobody of Portugal, or France, or Austria, for statereasons, and had entered on the usual loveless life of royalty. Or she may have beguiled her maidenly solitude by drinking much wine of Oporto, Madeira, and Xeres with her dinner, thereby acquiring that amplitude of girth, that ruddiness of countenance, and that polish of nose, which add so little to romance. At all events, we hear nothing more of the affair.In the course of years Ponce took to himself the gout, rheumatism, dyspepsia, and a few such matters, and he scolded his dresser more than usual because his clothes did not fit at the waist as they had done, once. He parted his hair with a towel, and it was grizzled where it curled about his neck and temples. Then he recalled the tales the Boriqueños had told of the bright waters that gushed from the earth amid banks of flowers,—waters so sweet that who drank would drink again, and with every draught would throw off years and pain until at last he was a youth once more,—a youth with hot blood, sparkling eyes, lithe muscles; a youth who saw the world full of beauty and adventure. Ah, to be once more as he was when the princess beamed on him; to throw away his cares, his ails, his conscience, his regrets; to sing and dance, to ruffle it with other cavaliers, to dice, to drink, to feast, to win the smiles of ladies! It was a joy worth trying to attain.He sailed once more, an older, sober man. He discovered Florida, bathed in its springs, drank from its flower-edged streams, but to no avail. Bimini,the place of the living waters, evaded him. Boriquen, renamed Porto Rico, could offer no more. But, though his living presence passed, the first building on the island—the White House, near San Juan—remains, and he left his name in the town that was first among the Antillean cities to raise the flag of a republic that should wave over the continent he had helped to discover and colonize:—the city of Ponce.Water CavesAs in most of the Spanish American countries, so in Porto Rico, ghosts are common,—so common that in some towns the people hardly turn to look at them; and if on a wild night in the hurricane season they hear them gibbering at their doors, they patter anaveor throw a piece of harness at the disturbance, and sleep again. Ponce, for instance, has a number of these spooks, such as the man who searches for his hidden money, and the child with a snowy face that knocks on the panes, then stares fixedly in, with corpse eyes, at the windows. Best known among these supernatural citizens are two lovers who “spoon” on dark nights, and are faintly outlined on the landscape as figures of quivering, smoky blue. Their favorite haunt is their death-place, eight miles from Ponce, in a hollow among limestone hills, now environed by a coffee plantation. Here are found three basins—results of erosion, most likely—that are described as naturalbath-tubs. The middle and largest of these pools is partly filled with silt, probably occluding the entrance to a cavern which formerly opened into it, a fathom or so below the water-surface. This cave was the hiding-place of a native woman whose father had discovered her love for one of Ponce de Leon’s soldiers. He forbade her to have anything to do with the enemies of his country, enlarged on their rapacity, cruelty, and treachery, and tried to create in her a sense of shame that she should have chosen a Spaniard, instead of a Boriqueno chief, for a lover. There were no locksmiths in the Antilles for love to laugh at, but there were spears and knives to fear, and the young couple, who seemed to be inspired by genuine affection, met at this lonely spot to do their courting. On the least suspicion of a hostile approach, the maid could slip into the water, enter the cave, and wait for an hour or a day, until the intruder had retired. However it happened nobody could tell,—or would,—but the Spaniard was found drowned one morning in that pool. He may have been found waiting there, by the angry parent, thrown in, on general principles, and held to the bottom by his steel arms and armor; or he may have been trying to find the cave in which his charmer had secreted herself, and while so engaged may have bumped his head against the rocky wall and stunned himself, or he may have been a poor swimmer and lost his wits and his wind. At all events, drowned he was, and the dusky virgin who loved him, seeinghis form at the bottom of the water, sang her sorrow chant, dived in, and, holding to his body, perished wilfully at his side. Their love endures, and that is why their luminous shadows sit at the brink of the pool, with locked arms and meeting lips, to the disgust of voting women and confirmed bachelors.This legend, with variants, is found in many parts of the world. There are two or three instances of it in the Hawaiian islands, and a tradition pertaining to Hayti is worth quoting here, as it refers to the same period and illustrates the same enmity between the white and native races. Near the city of San Domingo is, or was, a “water cave,” so named because the entrance to it was several feet below the lake whose shore it undermines. When the young half-breed, Diaz, returned from Spain to his native island of Hispaniola in 1520, his mother, Zameaca, queen of the Ozamas, had disappeared, possibly killed outright by the Spaniards, or more slowly killed by enslavement at the mines in vainly trying to satisfy the rapacity of the white race for gold. Diaz, though partly of Spanish blood, was allied in his sympathies to the Indians. Hence, they planned to make him ruler. Their conspiracy was quelled for the time being, with such brutality that those natives who escaped death hated their tyrants with a deeper hatred than ever, and fixed them the more strongly in their resolution to be avenged. The leading chiefs and warriors of the Ozamas took refuge in the water cave, spying on their enemies and going about to make converts among the islandersat night. It was not long before the watchful Spaniards discovered that mischief was afoot, and there were reasons for believing that the chiefs had their hiding place not many miles from town. By following various suspects into the country, and noticing the time and way of their return, they became convinced that the leaders of the rebellion were somewhere near the lake.A young woman, a slave in the family of the Spanish governor, was so often absent on mysterious errands that the authorities at last fixed on her as the one most likely to betray her countrymen. She was won to their purpose through her vanity. Her mistress had a comb of elaborate and curious workmanship, and to have one like it was the principal object in her existence. The governor told her that she should have this priceless treasure itself if she would tell him where the chiefs were meeting. To this act of treachery she finally agreed on condition that her lover, who was one of the chiefs, should be pardoned. That evening she carried bread and fruit to the lake, and sitting on the bank sang loudly for some minutes. The Spanish soldiers, who were watching from the shrubbery, were astonished to see a man rise like a seal from the water, swim to the shore, take the parcel from the girl’s hands, exchange a few words with her, and disappear again beneath the surface. The song was a signal for one of the men to come out and receive the food, and it was heard through a crevice in the cave roof.Next day the girl sang again, and the whole company left the cave. They had no sooner gained the shore than the Spaniards sprang from the shrubbery and surrounded them. As they were led away to death, one of the chiefs levelled his finger at the girl and said, “I am going to a land of peace. You will never find the way to it.” Her lover cast her off with bitter reproaches. Then, as the murderous volley pealed across the fields, and the rebellion was ended, her heart broke. She still sits at the lakeside in the evening, weeping over her comb.How a Dutchman Helped the SpaniardsHad any Dutchman been charged with intending akindnessto the dons when his country was smarting under the Spanish scourge he would have offered the life of some distant relative to disprove the accusation. Without a guess that he could be injuring his own land and enriching that of his enemy, an innocent magistrate of Amsterdam did that for which he would afterward have submitted to the abuse of his friends, and if sackcloth and ashes had been in vogue he would have worn them. It all came about through his wish to be pleasant to a Frenchman, the same being Louis XIV. He sent to this monarch a curiosity in the form of a young coffee-tree, thinking, no doubt, that a warm corner could be found for it in the Jardindes Plantes among the orchids and cacti, and little recking that Louis had a Spanish father-in-law. At that time Holland enjoyed, in her colonies, almost a monopoly of the coffee trade of the world, but that one little tree broke her monopoly, just as one little leak in her dikes led to the eating away of miles ofearthenwall and an in-rush and devastation of the sea.For Louis was more clever than some other kings, almost clever enough to have been in trade, or else he had smart advisers. He had slips cut from the coffee tree, and ere many moons had passed a promising dozen of young plants were ready for shipment to Martinique, the new French colony in the Antilles. A botanist was sent in charge of them, it being the purpose of Louis to turn the island into a coffee plantation and be free of obligation to Holland. The voyage was long, because of head winds and storms, and the precious plants were in peril. Long before the American shores were reached the water supply had run low, and there was much suffering; yet the loyal botanist gave up half of his daily allowance in order that his coffee-trees should live. Salt water would have killed them, and in those days ships had no distilling apparatus. Martinique was reached in safety, however, the little trees struck their roots into congenial soil, and thus the seeds, such as first yielded their aroma to a surprised and gratified Abyssinian chief more than a thousand years before, now spring from the strong earth of the Western world.Whether Spaniards stole some of these trees, or bought them, or whether they got away by accident, certes, they reached Porto Rico, and so became a source of pleasure and profit to people whom the Dutchman did not have in mind when he made his little gift to King Louis. It is believed that all the coffee raised in Batavia for the Dutch also grew from a handful of seeds that had been sent from Arabia to Java. And, oh, that ever the time should have come when France had to buy coffee from her own plant in Porto Rico, and send to that same island for logwood to make claret with,—the kind she sells to New York for bohemian tables d’hote!The Ghost of San GeronimoThe castle of San Geronimo, San Juan de Porto Rico, was founded a century ago. It occupies a rocky point at the east end of San Juan Island, and year by year had been strengthened until, when the American ships appeared in the offing, it was thought important enough to garrison. Six guns were emplaced, two other gun mounts were found by our troops when they entered, and a hole was discovered extending from a dungeon fifteen feet toward the breastworks. This had been freshly dug, and, it is believed, was devised for the storage of explosives, that the citadel might be blown up when the boys in blue entered to take possession. That the fort was abandoned without resorting tothis revengeful and unmilitary act may be due to the ghost. He would naturally be in evidence at such a time, and would do what he could to thwart the schemes of his enemies. For he gave his body to the worms fifty years or more ago. In the flesh he was a revolutionist, and had been dreaming vain things about liberty for his beloved island. It is not recorded that he ever harmed any one, or that his little insurrection attained the dignity of anything more than a rumor and an official chill, but the Spaniards caught him, threw him into the dark prison of this castle, and after he had undergone hunger, thirst, and illness, they went through their usual forms of trial and condemned him to death. This among the civilized would have meant that he would be sent to the gallows or the garrote; but this victim was alleged to have accomplices, and quite likely he was suspected of having a small fund; for the first thing to do when you overthrow a government, or want to, is to pass the hat. To secure the names of his fellow-conspirators, but more especially their money, the revolutionist was therefore consigned to the torture chamber, where the rack, the thumb-screw, the hot irons, the whip, and other survivals of the Inquisition were applied. When the officers had extorted what they wanted, or had made sure there was nothing to extort, the poor, white wreck of a human being was delivered by the judges to an executioner, and a merciful death was inflicted.Shortly after this occurrence the officers of the San Geronimo garrison began to request transfers, and the social set that had been formed in and near the castle was broken up. Gradually the troops thinned away, and although the works were kept in moderate repair and occasionally enlarged, the regular force was finally withdrawn, and even the solitary keepers who were left in charge died unaccountably. This was because the ghost of the tortured one pervaded its damp rooms and breathed blights and curses on the occupants. Its appearance was always heralded by a clatter of hoofs on the stone bridge leading into the court. The on-rush of spectre horses is variously explained, some believing that the dead man is leading an assault on the fort, others wondering if it may not be a conscience-smitten governor hurrying to rescue or reprieve his victim, and arriving too late,—a theory quite generally rejected on the ground that there never was that kind of a Spanish governor.An American officer, who took up his home in San Geronimo after the occupation, was disturbed for three successive nights by the ghost, and on learning the tradition of the place he investigated the palace and brought to light the torture chamber with its rows of hooks and rings and chains about the walls. The piercing of its roof, so that the sun came in and the ghosts and malaria went out, the removal of the grim relics of mediævalism, the cleaning and whitewashing of the apartments, haveprobably induced the spectre to take up his quarters elsewhere, for his old haunts are hardly recognizable, and he can have no grudge against the soldiers of a republic who carried out his plans with a perfection and promptness of which he could not have dreamed.The climate of the West Indies has ever been favorable to the preservation of spirits, and this haunted castle of San Juan has counterparts in the island, and in other islands, and the ghosts are not always victims of the Spaniards, either. The appearance of spectres in the New World was almost contemporary with Columbus. Indeed, one of the most startling of supernatural appearances occurred in the town he founded,—the town of Isabella, Hayti, the first white man’s city in America. It was created by the great navigator on his second voyage, but it remained for only a few years on the map. The dons whom he brought with him refused to work, even when the colony was starving, and reported him in Spain as a tyrant for asking them to put up their own shelters, cook their own food, and grind their own flour. They would not even work in the mines where gold could be seen in the river sands, because they had expected to pick up the metal in lumps, or force it from the natives in such quantities that each adventurer might return with a bushel. Hardship, illness, short commons, the need of occasional labor, the heart-breaks over the gold failure, the retaliationsof the natives for the cruelties and injustices of the invaders, led to the rapid decline of the city of Isabella. Its foundations may still be visible; at least they were a few years ago; but it is peopled only by ghosts. Some years after it had been deserted, two Spaniards, who had been hunting in that part of the island, entered its ruined streets. They had heard from the Indians of strange, booming voices that echoed among its dead houses, but had dismissed this tale as invention or fancy. The sun was low and mists were gathering. As the hunters turned a corner they were astonished to see a company of cavaliers drawn up in double rank, as if for parade, sword on hip, plumed hats aslant, big booted, leather jacketed, grim, and silent. The two men asked whence they had come. The cavaliers spoke no word, but all together lifting their hats in salute, lifted their heads off with them, then melted into air. They were the dead of the fated town. The two spectators fainted with horror, and did not recover their peace of mind in many days.Police Activity in HumacaoFor three centuries a Spanish convict station was kept in Porto Rico. The unpleasant and undesirable found, not a welcome here, but a more congenial company than in the home land. Life was easier because one needed less food and clothes, andthey were furnished by the authorities, anyway. What with the convicts and discontented slaves, it is a wonder that any sort of comfort or safety existed on the island, and especially that so much of pleasant social life was to be found in the cities. Those who knew Porto Rico in those days, however, say that class distinctions were not sharply marked; that the master was kind to the slave, and the slave felt as if he were a member of his master’s family, rather than a dependent; that the two were often seen at the cockpit sitting elbow to elbow, kneeling side by side in the same church, greeting the same friends or cracking the heads of the same enemies before the church doors at Epiphany, and in the humbler homes sitting at the same table.In those simple times the robber gangs were a great vexation. Killing was something to grow used to, and a disagreement over cards was liable to result in having one’s head snipped off by a machete; but to be robbed of one’s machete, or of one’s jug of rum, or of one’s only trousers, was a sad affliction, and soldiers and police were as active as Spanish functionaries could persuade themselves to be, in running down—or walking down—these outlaws. It is said that the detectives were especially amusing. They would go about in such obvious disguises, with misfit wigs, window-glass spectacles, and the costumes of priests or notaries, that a robber could barely keep his countenance when he met them in the street. The thief alwaysescaped, either through the incompetence of the officers, or by sharing his profits with them.But there was one fellow who made such trouble that the police began to chafe beneath the public criticism. To impugn their honor did not hurt them much, though they ruffled a good deal under it, but to threaten them with reduction of pay or removal was a serious matter; so the chief of the San Juan constabulary bestirred himself, after a particularly daring robbery had occurred in his bailiwick, the rogue making off with six thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry. He got safely away from town and was traced to Humacao, where his footprints were found leading to the door of a small, tumble-down, deserted house, and none of these prints could be seen with toes pointing away from it. The chief dismissed his men and prepared to conduct a siege. He had a dagger, a machete, two pistols, and a gun, with a box of ammunition. Thus equipped he went to the front door, gave it a sounding whack with the flat of his machete, and bawled, “Open, in the name of the law!”There was no response, so he struck his weapon impatiently against the panels two or three times and called on the bandit to emerge and give himself up. Again there was no reply. A bolder move was necessary. He pushed open the window, crouching down outside, that he might not become a target for the fellow, who was probably lurking in the dark interior, and after calling on him for a thirdtime to appear and go to jail, he thrust his firearms in and began to blaze in all directions over the floor.After emptying the pistols and gun he shouted, “If you don’t come out I’ll blow you to the bad place, for I have one hundred and fifty cartridges here, and I can surely shoot you.”All this time the robber had been lying on the floor, just below the window, very flat and very still. As the chief did not show himself to take aim, but reached up from his kneeling position and fired at random, the bold, bad man in-doors began to feel a return of confidence. He waited until a second fusillade was over, when he slipped softly through the back door, went around to the front, waited until a third volley had been fired, when he pounced on the chief from behind, and in a trice had a stout rope around him. In a few seconds more he had the astonished and indignant functionary tied securely to one of the posts of the veranda. Then, calmly taking possession of the weapons, he lifted his hat, wished the officer a very good day and a pleasant siesta, and sauntered off to some other town where the police were still less active.The Church in Porto RicoIf the Spanish colonies have been immoral, it must be granted that they have been religious. This fact has made them easier to govern, for the words of the priests and friars have been accepted asdivinely inspired at times when, as a matter of fact, they have been inspired only by the governor or the garrison colonel. The church in the colonies is nothing like the modern and American institution that we know. It is a survival from the Middle Ages. Yet it has shown shrewdness in Porto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines, its prosperity proving that the Spaniard can be a thrifty mortal whether he wears a monkish cowl or a military uniform. Much money has been demanded by the church, but much of it has been honestly spent in the beautifying of altars and the dressing of the statues. Our Lady of the Remedies, in the Church of La Providencia, San Juan, for example, wears a cloak worth fifteen hundred dollars, and is emblazoned with twenty thousand dollars’ worth of jewels; but then, she is the patron of the island. The priests have been quick to see an advantage in benefits or disasters and have often impressed the natives by lessons drawn from natural phenomena. Thus, in 1867, a conspiracy for the overthrow of Spanish rule had been organized, and violence was hourly expected: but on the eve of an uprising the island was shaken by an earthquake. The priests made the most of this, assuring the natives that it was a warning from heaven never to interfere with Spaniards; so the insurrectos stealthily laid down their arms and stole away to their various substitutes for employment, leaving their Lexington unfought.In one way this willingness to keep out of fights hasbeen a bad thing for the island, because insurrection became a matter of business with some of the natives. They used it as a mode of blackmail. These insurrectos would throw a wealthy planter into a state of alarm by pretending to hold meetings on his premises. He knew that if the authorities got wind of this it might go hard with him, for if he were suspected of being a member of a lodge of the White Saber or the Red Hand, it could mean imprisonment, perhaps death; so he paid the revolution something to move on and occur on some other man’s land. By levying thus on fear and policy a few members of an alleged junta managed to live quite comfortably without work, and it is whispered that the padres of certain villages received their share of the reluctant tributes.Porto Rico has been the place of abode of some noted fathers of the church, including two martyrs who were canonized by Pius IX. as saints: Charles Spinola and Jerome de Angelis. They left Portugal for Goa in 1596, but having been blown far out of their course, they put in at this island to repair their ship, and there for two months they preached with success. On their return to Lisbon they were captured by English pirates, who treated them kindly, however, and set them safely down in London. They reached Portugal eventually, and ended their work in Japan, where the people killed them. These and other saints receive the prayers of the people on stated occasions, for in Porto Rico the saints havenot only their special days, but their special crops, and guard them from special injuries. Thus, the farmer prays to St. James, it is said, when he asks for deliverance from tobacco-worms, while he must address St. Martial if he wants to free his field from ants.Of the holy hermits who have resided on the island, several have dwelt in the caves where Caribs or Arawaks buried their dead, but the best-known shrine is that of Hormigueros. The Church of Our Lady of Monserrate, which crowns a hill and is a conspicuous landmark, is said to have been copied from the chapel of a Benedictine monastery in Barcelona, which is famous in Spain for its statue of the Virgin, carved by St. Luke and carried to Barcelona in the year 50 by St. Peter. The Monserrate church was founded in 1640 by a poor farmer. He had been ploughing over the hill-top, though weak with fever, and before he could finish his work he fell to the ground exhausted. After he had partly recovered, and had gone back to the plough, he turned a tile up from the earth, on which was engraved a portrait of the Virgin, and no sooner had he taken this object into his hands than his pain, his fever, his lassitude disappeared. Convinced that the relic was sacred, he carried it to his priest, and on that very day he gave the land he had ploughed for a votive church. It has become the best known sanctuary in Porto Rico, for the large painting of the Virgin, copied from the smaller portrait on the tile, is just as potentas the original in curing diseases. In the last half-century a hundred miracles have been performed, and the silver and golden arms, legs, ears, eyes, fingers, feet, livers, and hearts that have been given to the church, in thanks and testimony, amount in value to sixty thousand dollars; for a patient who has been cured or helped is expected to send a little model, in precious metal, of the part of him that needed mending. At intervals these offerings are melted up for the altar service and decorations, and few churches in America have such resplendent candlesticks, chalices, draperies and vestments. The altar is of silver plates, and the gold cross upon it weighs thirteen pounds. Pilgrims to Hormigueros go from all parts of the West Indies. They are lodged, free of charge, in an old house behind the church, each cripple or invalid receiving a bed and chair, but no food. The pilgrims must supply their own sustenance. On entering the church, in procession, they are sprinkled with water from the Jordan, and then kneel before the cross, where the cures are worked.The MermaidsIn dime museums and county fairs one may still find among the “attractions” a mermaid, dried and stuffed, consisting of the upper half of a monkey artlessly joined to the lower half or two-thirds of a codfish, the monkey’s head usually adorned with a handful of oakum or horse-hair. When this kindof thing was first exhibited by the lamented P. T. Barnum, it is just possible that some bumpkin really believed it to be a mermaid, but the invention has become so common of late that it is found in the curio-shops of every town, and as an eye-catching device is often put into show-cases by some merchant who deals in anything rather than mermaids. Trite and ridiculous as this patchwork appears, it symbolizes a belief of full three thousand years. Men have always been prone to fill with imaginations what they have never sounded with their senses, and it is to this tendency we owe poetry and the arts. The sea was a mystery, and is so still. It was easy to people its twilight depths with forms of grace and beauty and power, for surely the denizens taken from it were strange enough to warrant strange beliefs.And so the old faith in men and women who lived beneath the water was passed down from generation to generation, and from race to race, changing but little from age to age. Ulysses stopped the ears of his crew with wax that they should not hear the sirens luring them toward the rocks as his ship sailed by, and knowing the magic of their song had himself bound to the mast, so, hearing the ravishing music, he might not escape if he would. In a later day we hear of the Lorelei singing on her rock, striking chords on her golden harp, and, as the raptured fisherman steered close, with eyes filled by her beauty and ears by her music, he had a moment’sconsciousness of a skull leering at him and harsh laughter clattering in echoes along the shore; then his boat struck and filled, and the dark flood curtained off the sky. Wagner has made familiar the legend of the Rhine daughters, singing impossibly under the river as they swim about the reef of gold,—the treasure stolen by the gnome, Alberich, who in that act brought envy, strife, greed, and injustice into the world, and accomplished the destruction of the gods themselves. The wild tales of Britain and Brittany, of thefts and revenges by the sea-creatures, are among the oldest of their myths, and when we cross to our side of the sea, the ocean people are close in our wake and they follow us through the fresh waters and far out in the Pacific.Among the Antilles, as in the South Seas, the tritons blow their conchs and shake their shaggy heads, while the daughters of the deep gather, at certain seasons, on the water, or about some favorite rock, and sing. Always, in Eastern versions of the myth, there is music, save in the case of Melusina, who became a half fish only on Saturdays, when her husband was supposed not to be watching, and this music follows the myth around the world. Among the vague traditions of certain Alaskan Indians is one of an immigration from Asia, under lead of “a creature resembling a man, with long, green hair and beard, whose lower part was a fish; or, rather, each leg a fish.” He charmed them so with his singing that they followed him, unconsciously,and reached America. We find in Canada the tale of a dusky Undine, a soulless water sprite, who, through love of a mortal, became human. Some of the beings of the sea were of more than human power and authority,—gods, in fact; barbarian Neptunes. Such was the Pacific god, Rau Raku, who, being entangled in a fishing-net, was lugged to the surface, sputtering tremendously. Yet he had no grudge against the fisherman. That trembling unfortunate was too small for his revenge. He would devastate the whole earth to which he had been thus unceremoniously dragged, and, bidding his captor take himself away while he made trouble, he deluged the globe until all upon it had perished, except the fish, the fisherman, and a few land animals that the sole human survivor had taken to a lofty island with him.The mermaid of story was a damsel fair to view, until she had risen from the waves so as to show her fish-like ending. It was her habit to sit on sunny beaches, comb her golden hair with a golden comb, and sing delightfully, though her wilder sisters would perch on juts of rock on lonely islands and scream in frightening ways when a gale was coming. When the sea-maidens went ashore they sometimes met sailors and fishermen, and if they liked these strangers a frank avowal of love was made; for it is always leap year in the ocean. It was a most uncomfortable position for a mortal to be placed in, especially one who had a wife waiting for him athome, because if their addresses were rejected the mermaids were liable to throw stones, and always with fatal results; or they would brew mists, and set loose awful storms; yet, if the man who inspired this affection was not coy, and yielded to one of these slippery denizens, she dragged him under the sea forthwith, unless he could persuade her to compromise on a cave or a lonely rock as a home, for it is reputed that mortals have formally wedded them and raised amphibious families. On the Isle of Man they tell of one caught in a net, who was woman to the waist and fish as to the rest of her. As she sulked in captivity, refusing to eat or speak,—perhaps they forgot to offer raw fish for her supper,—it was decided to let her escape; and as she wriggled over the beach she was heard to tell her people (in Manx?), as they arose to greet her, that the earth-men did nothing wonderful except to throw away water in which they had boiled eggs!The home of the mermaids was at the bottom of the deep. A diver, who said he had reached it, reported a region of clear water, lighted from below by great, white stones and pyramids of crystal. These haunts contained bowers of coral, gardens of bright sea weeds and mosses, tables and chairs of amber, floors of iridescent shell and pearls, gems strewn about the jasper grottoes,—diamonds, rubies, topazes,—and the sea people had combs and ornaments of gold. Columbus was disappointed in the mermaids that he saw in the Caribbean. Theywere not, to his eyes, so handsome as the romancers had alleged, nor were their voices sweet. The doubters claim that he was asleep when the mermaids appeared, and that he saw nothing but the sea cow, or manatee, which is neither tuneful nor pretty.The AboriginesIn following the southern coast of Cuba, Columbus supposed he was working toward India. He died ignorant of the fact that he had discovered a new world, and he gave up the exploration of this island when almost in sight of open water at its western end. Of the first inhabitants of Cuba (called by some Macaca, and by others Caboi, “land of the dead,” for the people killed their prisoners), little is known, for they were exterminated as a distinct race, and their few relics were disregarded as worthless or destroyed as idolatrous. It is believed, however, that they had some knowledge of the arts; they worked gold into ornaments, and copper and stone into tools and weapons, and they wore helmets of feathers, like those of the Hawaiian chiefs. Near Bayamo have been found farming tools, painted pottery, and little statuettes supposed to represent gods. Their houses were hardly more than shelters, frames of bamboo or light boughs, though they were prettily environed by walks and flowers, and their clothing—sometimes of fur, oftener of leaves and coarse cloth—was of the scantiest. Heavy dresses in a tropic country, or in a temperate country in tropic weather, are manifestly absurd.As on the other Antilles, the people of Cuba were brown, broad, straight-haired, flat-faced, and decorated with slashes and tattooing. They were singularly mild, honest, and trusting. They were frightened by the Spanish ships, believing them to be great birds that had come down from the sky, bringing the white adventurers in their brave array; but when Columbus had sent a few beads and hawks’ bells to them, they expressed their confidence and delight in a hundred ways, swam and rowed about his caravel offering fish and fruit, not in trade, but as gifts, and when a crowd of hungry sailors ashore invited themselves to a feast that had been prepared for a religious ceremony the Indians made no objection, because they could prepare one like it by another night’s work. Food, indeed, was free to whoso needed it, like air and water, and no stranger needed to go hungry. While the Spaniards did little to invite their confidence, were insolent to most other people and even to one another, the Indians set an example of charity in conduct and in faith. The dons were intolerant of all religions except their own, whereas the Cubans were quick to realize that the performance of the mass was of some sacred significance, and they preserved a reverent attitude throughout a ceremony whose details they did not understand. When missionarywork had fairly begun it is said that some Spaniards drove Indians into the water, forcibly baptized them, then cut their throats that they might not repent their acceptance of the true faith. In their own belief there appeared to be a purgatory and a paradise, but no hell or devil; and, as beliefs reveal the character of the people who hold them, it speaks well for the Cubans that the grewsome images invoked by certain mediæval theologians had never been created in their more generous imaginations. When a soul left the body it had two journeys before it: one to a dismal place, where the cruel and unjust awaited; the other to a fair land, like the best of earth, where all was pleasant and peaceful; for, in spite of the warlike undertakings made necessary by irruptions of the fierce Caribs, these people held to peace as the highest good.Of these Indians hardly a dozen are remembered by their names, but the chief Hatuey was revered among them for his courage and his military skill. He had fled from Hayti to Cuba in a vain hope of escaping his white enemy, and counselled the natives to throw all their gold into the sea, that the Spanish might not linger on their coasts. He might have been the one who ordered gold to be melted and poured down the throats of his prisoners, that for one and the last time they might have enough. The Spaniards caught him and burned him to death at Baracoa. As he stood on the logs in chains, just before the flames were applied, the friars pressedabout him and earnestly advised him to become a Christian, that he might not be required to roast in hell, which would be worse than the torture he was about to endure, and which would last forever. If only he would be baptized he could go direct to heaven. “The white man’s heaven?” he asked. “Yes.” “Are there any Spaniards in that heaven?” “Oh, yes, many.” “Then light the fire.”Columbus was the more convinced that he had reached Asia because the name of one Cuban province, Mangon, he assumed to be Mangi, a rich district of China. That its people had tails, like monkeys, was nothing against this theory; that footprints of alligators should be the tracks of griffins, which had the bodies of lions and the wings and heads of eagles, was quite in order; but most convincing of all was the discovery by an archer, who had entered a wood in search of game, of thirty men with pale faces, armed with clubs and lances, and habited in white gowns, like friars. The man fled in fear. When his comrades returned with him to find this white company, not a human being appeared to them, and, except for the chatter of birds and the clicking of land-crabs as they scuttled over the stones, the place was still. The coast Indians were understood to say that among the mountains dwelt a chief whom they called a saint, who wore a flowing robe of white and never spoke aloud, ordering his subjects by signs. This was surely Prester John, the shadowy king of a shadowy kingdom, ofwhom much was said and written a few centuries ago. He was declared by one author to rule a part of India and was reputed to be a Nestorian priest who had made himself king of the Naymans. Other travellers placed him in China, Persia, and Timbuctoo. In a battle with the infidel Tartars Prester John mounted a number of bronze men on horseback, each figure belching clouds of smoke from a fire of punk within, and lashed the horses against the enemy, filling them with such terror, and so veiling in smoke the dash of his flesh and blood cavalry, that his victory was easy. So, it was a great satisfaction to Columbus to think that he had reached the confines of a Christian kingdom.While working through the thousand little islands off the southern coast of Cuba, that he called the Queen’s Gardens, Columbus found added reason for believing that this was the Asiatic shore, and he hoped shortly to reach Cipango, or Japan, where pearls and precious stones abounded, and where the king abode in a palace covered with plates of gold more than an inch thick. The attempts of the Mongols to overrun the Asian islands were defeated, because the Cipangalese were invulnerable, having placed between the skin and the flesh of their right arms a little stone that made them safe against swords, arrows, clubs, and slings. The people of Cuba fell too easy a prey to Spanish blades—of both sorts—to allow a belief like this to last long.That Columbus thought he was approaching theearthly paradise, the mountain-guarded Eden where our first parents lived, when he neared these lovely shores, inhaled the fragrance of fruits and flowers, heard the cries of birds and saw the flash of bright waters, is probable. That paradise he sought. The serpent of oppression and wrong has left it, and as America comes into her own, that paradise shall be.

The DelugeLike many unschooled peoples, the Antillean tribes had their legend of a time when the earth was covered by a flood. The island of St. Thomas was one of the first to rise out of the sea. The Haytiens said that the deluge did not subside and that the present islands are the summits of mountains that formerly towered to a great height above the plains. Far back in the days when people lived more simply, and white men, with their abominable contrivings for work, had not even been invented, acaciqueor chief of their island killed his son, who had tried to harm him, albeit when the lad was dead a natural affection prompted the father to clean his bones and conceal them in a gourd. Some time afterwards thecaciqueand his wife opened this vegetable tomb, to look on the mortal relics of their child, when a number of fish jumped out. Believing that he now had in the gourd a magic receptacle, from which he could take food at any time, the chief placed it on his roof, where mischief-makers might not reach it. While absent on a hunting-trip his four surviving sons took down the gourd to see what peculiar properties it had, and why it had been thus set apart. In passing it from one to the other it fell and was broken into little pieces. Instantly a vast quantity of water gushed from it, increasing in volume every instant. The water arose so that it reached their knees, and they had to climb the hills.Whales, sharks, porpoises, dolphins, and smaller creatures came swimming forth, and the flow of the water never ceased until the whole world was flooded, as we see it now, for the ocean came from that gourd.

Like many unschooled peoples, the Antillean tribes had their legend of a time when the earth was covered by a flood. The island of St. Thomas was one of the first to rise out of the sea. The Haytiens said that the deluge did not subside and that the present islands are the summits of mountains that formerly towered to a great height above the plains. Far back in the days when people lived more simply, and white men, with their abominable contrivings for work, had not even been invented, acaciqueor chief of their island killed his son, who had tried to harm him, albeit when the lad was dead a natural affection prompted the father to clean his bones and conceal them in a gourd. Some time afterwards thecaciqueand his wife opened this vegetable tomb, to look on the mortal relics of their child, when a number of fish jumped out. Believing that he now had in the gourd a magic receptacle, from which he could take food at any time, the chief placed it on his roof, where mischief-makers might not reach it. While absent on a hunting-trip his four surviving sons took down the gourd to see what peculiar properties it had, and why it had been thus set apart. In passing it from one to the other it fell and was broken into little pieces. Instantly a vast quantity of water gushed from it, increasing in volume every instant. The water arose so that it reached their knees, and they had to climb the hills.Whales, sharks, porpoises, dolphins, and smaller creatures came swimming forth, and the flow of the water never ceased until the whole world was flooded, as we see it now, for the ocean came from that gourd.

How Spaniards were Found to be MortalThe first Spaniards to reach the American islands were everywhere greeted as heavenly visitors, and the natives would not have been astonished had the caravels spread their sails—their wings, as they first were called—and flown into the clouds, carrying Columbus and his wrangling, jealous, sensual, gold-greedy company with him. Afterward they would have been more astonished than sorry. When the white men discovered this simple faith among the savages they encouraged it, for it induced the Indians to give up their wives, daughters, houses, weapons, and, above all else, their gold, to the strangers. The little bells and beads they gave in return were treasured because of their celestial origin and adored as fervently as the bones of saints are adored in some of the European churches. Everywhere and always the demand was for gold, and in the belief that the supply was going to last forever, Spain began to ruin herself with more industry than she had ever shown in peaceful callings. Her wars, her splendors, her vanities, her neglect of education and morality, bore their fruit when shepulled her flag down from the staff on Havana’s Moro, and gave up her claims to the last foot of land in the Western world.Ponce de Leon permitted the fiction that the Spaniards were angels—save the mark!—for it smoothed his progress in stripping the Porto Ricans of their poor little possessions, taking their lands for settlement, foraging over the island, forcing his religion upon them, and compelling them to serve him as miners, carriers, farmers, fishermen, and laborers. Many died because it was thought to be cheaper to work them to death and get fresh ones than to feed them. After a time the Indians began to have doubts, and when the friars enlarged on the glories of heaven, and described it as the abode of Spaniards, more of them than Hatuey were anxious to be allowed to go to the other place. They did not at first dare to attack the intruders, for what could men avail against gods, and of what use were spears and clubs against their thunderous arms and smashing missiles?As the aggressions increased and became less and less endurable, Chief Agueynaba resolved, out of the soreness of his heart, to test this reputed immortality of his guests. A messenger, one Salzedo, was to be sent away from San Juan on some official errand, with a little company of natives as freighters and servants. This was Agueynaba’s chance. He ordered his men to slip Salzedo into a river and hold him under water for a time. If he was an immortal this would not hurt him, and if he died, why—theywould try very hard to bear up under the loss. While crossing the river—the spot is still shown—the men who bore Salzedo on their shoulders pitched him off and detained him beneath the surface for a couple of hours; then, fearing that he might be still alive and vicious, they put him on a bank and howled apologies to his remains for three days. By that time there was no longer a doubt about his deadness. Reports of this discovery traversed the island with the speed of a South American mail service, so that within a week people even forty miles away had heard about it. Thus encouraged to resistance by the discovery that white men were mortal, the populace fell upon their persecutors and troubled them, although after one defeat the Spaniards rallied and drove the Indians back to the mines.

The first Spaniards to reach the American islands were everywhere greeted as heavenly visitors, and the natives would not have been astonished had the caravels spread their sails—their wings, as they first were called—and flown into the clouds, carrying Columbus and his wrangling, jealous, sensual, gold-greedy company with him. Afterward they would have been more astonished than sorry. When the white men discovered this simple faith among the savages they encouraged it, for it induced the Indians to give up their wives, daughters, houses, weapons, and, above all else, their gold, to the strangers. The little bells and beads they gave in return were treasured because of their celestial origin and adored as fervently as the bones of saints are adored in some of the European churches. Everywhere and always the demand was for gold, and in the belief that the supply was going to last forever, Spain began to ruin herself with more industry than she had ever shown in peaceful callings. Her wars, her splendors, her vanities, her neglect of education and morality, bore their fruit when shepulled her flag down from the staff on Havana’s Moro, and gave up her claims to the last foot of land in the Western world.

Ponce de Leon permitted the fiction that the Spaniards were angels—save the mark!—for it smoothed his progress in stripping the Porto Ricans of their poor little possessions, taking their lands for settlement, foraging over the island, forcing his religion upon them, and compelling them to serve him as miners, carriers, farmers, fishermen, and laborers. Many died because it was thought to be cheaper to work them to death and get fresh ones than to feed them. After a time the Indians began to have doubts, and when the friars enlarged on the glories of heaven, and described it as the abode of Spaniards, more of them than Hatuey were anxious to be allowed to go to the other place. They did not at first dare to attack the intruders, for what could men avail against gods, and of what use were spears and clubs against their thunderous arms and smashing missiles?

As the aggressions increased and became less and less endurable, Chief Agueynaba resolved, out of the soreness of his heart, to test this reputed immortality of his guests. A messenger, one Salzedo, was to be sent away from San Juan on some official errand, with a little company of natives as freighters and servants. This was Agueynaba’s chance. He ordered his men to slip Salzedo into a river and hold him under water for a time. If he was an immortal this would not hurt him, and if he died, why—theywould try very hard to bear up under the loss. While crossing the river—the spot is still shown—the men who bore Salzedo on their shoulders pitched him off and detained him beneath the surface for a couple of hours; then, fearing that he might be still alive and vicious, they put him on a bank and howled apologies to his remains for three days. By that time there was no longer a doubt about his deadness. Reports of this discovery traversed the island with the speed of a South American mail service, so that within a week people even forty miles away had heard about it. Thus encouraged to resistance by the discovery that white men were mortal, the populace fell upon their persecutors and troubled them, although after one defeat the Spaniards rallied and drove the Indians back to the mines.

PonceWhen Ponce de Leon visited and conquered Porto Rico he heard of the elixir of life. It may not have been among the springs of that island, but the natives had a faith in it and some of them referred it to the Bahamas. Their possible reason for this was to persuade the white men to go there and look for it, for they were not popular in Porto Rico, and this was the more to be regretted in Ponce’s case, because he was far from popular at home. At the court of Ferdinand and Isabella was a page who was handsome, spirited, and saucy. Oneof the daughters of the royal pair, wearied with the forms and ceremonies of her state, which, in the most punctilious court in Europe, were especially trying, found means to converse with this well-appearing, quick-witted scamp. A tattling courtier, recalling afaux pasof the last queen, and desiring no more scandals, reported that the princess had been seen to smile on the youngster. No guilt was proven upon him, but handsome pages were ill-chosen company for young women of blue blood.Ponce de Leon was the page, and he was sent to the New World to discover something to the advantage of his own modesty, and incidentally to accumulate for shipment anything that might be useful to the Spanish treasury. He landed in Boriquen, as Porto Rico was then called, and began a general subjugation and slaughter of the natives. Some were slain in battle, but thousands were carried away and made to work in mines and on distant plantations, as slaves, until their health was destroyed, and they, too, were no longer an obstacle to Spanish control, though the lack of their hands was a hindrance to Spanish enterprise. Ponce took his share of the gold and treasure he had forced these unfortunates to supply, and went back to Spain with it. Sea air had spoiled his complexion, fighting had roughened his manners, slave-driving had made his voice coarse. Possibly, also, his princess had recovered from her disappointment. Maybe she had been married off to some nobody of Portugal, or France, or Austria, for statereasons, and had entered on the usual loveless life of royalty. Or she may have beguiled her maidenly solitude by drinking much wine of Oporto, Madeira, and Xeres with her dinner, thereby acquiring that amplitude of girth, that ruddiness of countenance, and that polish of nose, which add so little to romance. At all events, we hear nothing more of the affair.In the course of years Ponce took to himself the gout, rheumatism, dyspepsia, and a few such matters, and he scolded his dresser more than usual because his clothes did not fit at the waist as they had done, once. He parted his hair with a towel, and it was grizzled where it curled about his neck and temples. Then he recalled the tales the Boriqueños had told of the bright waters that gushed from the earth amid banks of flowers,—waters so sweet that who drank would drink again, and with every draught would throw off years and pain until at last he was a youth once more,—a youth with hot blood, sparkling eyes, lithe muscles; a youth who saw the world full of beauty and adventure. Ah, to be once more as he was when the princess beamed on him; to throw away his cares, his ails, his conscience, his regrets; to sing and dance, to ruffle it with other cavaliers, to dice, to drink, to feast, to win the smiles of ladies! It was a joy worth trying to attain.He sailed once more, an older, sober man. He discovered Florida, bathed in its springs, drank from its flower-edged streams, but to no avail. Bimini,the place of the living waters, evaded him. Boriquen, renamed Porto Rico, could offer no more. But, though his living presence passed, the first building on the island—the White House, near San Juan—remains, and he left his name in the town that was first among the Antillean cities to raise the flag of a republic that should wave over the continent he had helped to discover and colonize:—the city of Ponce.

When Ponce de Leon visited and conquered Porto Rico he heard of the elixir of life. It may not have been among the springs of that island, but the natives had a faith in it and some of them referred it to the Bahamas. Their possible reason for this was to persuade the white men to go there and look for it, for they were not popular in Porto Rico, and this was the more to be regretted in Ponce’s case, because he was far from popular at home. At the court of Ferdinand and Isabella was a page who was handsome, spirited, and saucy. Oneof the daughters of the royal pair, wearied with the forms and ceremonies of her state, which, in the most punctilious court in Europe, were especially trying, found means to converse with this well-appearing, quick-witted scamp. A tattling courtier, recalling afaux pasof the last queen, and desiring no more scandals, reported that the princess had been seen to smile on the youngster. No guilt was proven upon him, but handsome pages were ill-chosen company for young women of blue blood.

Ponce de Leon was the page, and he was sent to the New World to discover something to the advantage of his own modesty, and incidentally to accumulate for shipment anything that might be useful to the Spanish treasury. He landed in Boriquen, as Porto Rico was then called, and began a general subjugation and slaughter of the natives. Some were slain in battle, but thousands were carried away and made to work in mines and on distant plantations, as slaves, until their health was destroyed, and they, too, were no longer an obstacle to Spanish control, though the lack of their hands was a hindrance to Spanish enterprise. Ponce took his share of the gold and treasure he had forced these unfortunates to supply, and went back to Spain with it. Sea air had spoiled his complexion, fighting had roughened his manners, slave-driving had made his voice coarse. Possibly, also, his princess had recovered from her disappointment. Maybe she had been married off to some nobody of Portugal, or France, or Austria, for statereasons, and had entered on the usual loveless life of royalty. Or she may have beguiled her maidenly solitude by drinking much wine of Oporto, Madeira, and Xeres with her dinner, thereby acquiring that amplitude of girth, that ruddiness of countenance, and that polish of nose, which add so little to romance. At all events, we hear nothing more of the affair.

In the course of years Ponce took to himself the gout, rheumatism, dyspepsia, and a few such matters, and he scolded his dresser more than usual because his clothes did not fit at the waist as they had done, once. He parted his hair with a towel, and it was grizzled where it curled about his neck and temples. Then he recalled the tales the Boriqueños had told of the bright waters that gushed from the earth amid banks of flowers,—waters so sweet that who drank would drink again, and with every draught would throw off years and pain until at last he was a youth once more,—a youth with hot blood, sparkling eyes, lithe muscles; a youth who saw the world full of beauty and adventure. Ah, to be once more as he was when the princess beamed on him; to throw away his cares, his ails, his conscience, his regrets; to sing and dance, to ruffle it with other cavaliers, to dice, to drink, to feast, to win the smiles of ladies! It was a joy worth trying to attain.

He sailed once more, an older, sober man. He discovered Florida, bathed in its springs, drank from its flower-edged streams, but to no avail. Bimini,the place of the living waters, evaded him. Boriquen, renamed Porto Rico, could offer no more. But, though his living presence passed, the first building on the island—the White House, near San Juan—remains, and he left his name in the town that was first among the Antillean cities to raise the flag of a republic that should wave over the continent he had helped to discover and colonize:—the city of Ponce.

Water CavesAs in most of the Spanish American countries, so in Porto Rico, ghosts are common,—so common that in some towns the people hardly turn to look at them; and if on a wild night in the hurricane season they hear them gibbering at their doors, they patter anaveor throw a piece of harness at the disturbance, and sleep again. Ponce, for instance, has a number of these spooks, such as the man who searches for his hidden money, and the child with a snowy face that knocks on the panes, then stares fixedly in, with corpse eyes, at the windows. Best known among these supernatural citizens are two lovers who “spoon” on dark nights, and are faintly outlined on the landscape as figures of quivering, smoky blue. Their favorite haunt is their death-place, eight miles from Ponce, in a hollow among limestone hills, now environed by a coffee plantation. Here are found three basins—results of erosion, most likely—that are described as naturalbath-tubs. The middle and largest of these pools is partly filled with silt, probably occluding the entrance to a cavern which formerly opened into it, a fathom or so below the water-surface. This cave was the hiding-place of a native woman whose father had discovered her love for one of Ponce de Leon’s soldiers. He forbade her to have anything to do with the enemies of his country, enlarged on their rapacity, cruelty, and treachery, and tried to create in her a sense of shame that she should have chosen a Spaniard, instead of a Boriqueno chief, for a lover. There were no locksmiths in the Antilles for love to laugh at, but there were spears and knives to fear, and the young couple, who seemed to be inspired by genuine affection, met at this lonely spot to do their courting. On the least suspicion of a hostile approach, the maid could slip into the water, enter the cave, and wait for an hour or a day, until the intruder had retired. However it happened nobody could tell,—or would,—but the Spaniard was found drowned one morning in that pool. He may have been found waiting there, by the angry parent, thrown in, on general principles, and held to the bottom by his steel arms and armor; or he may have been trying to find the cave in which his charmer had secreted herself, and while so engaged may have bumped his head against the rocky wall and stunned himself, or he may have been a poor swimmer and lost his wits and his wind. At all events, drowned he was, and the dusky virgin who loved him, seeinghis form at the bottom of the water, sang her sorrow chant, dived in, and, holding to his body, perished wilfully at his side. Their love endures, and that is why their luminous shadows sit at the brink of the pool, with locked arms and meeting lips, to the disgust of voting women and confirmed bachelors.This legend, with variants, is found in many parts of the world. There are two or three instances of it in the Hawaiian islands, and a tradition pertaining to Hayti is worth quoting here, as it refers to the same period and illustrates the same enmity between the white and native races. Near the city of San Domingo is, or was, a “water cave,” so named because the entrance to it was several feet below the lake whose shore it undermines. When the young half-breed, Diaz, returned from Spain to his native island of Hispaniola in 1520, his mother, Zameaca, queen of the Ozamas, had disappeared, possibly killed outright by the Spaniards, or more slowly killed by enslavement at the mines in vainly trying to satisfy the rapacity of the white race for gold. Diaz, though partly of Spanish blood, was allied in his sympathies to the Indians. Hence, they planned to make him ruler. Their conspiracy was quelled for the time being, with such brutality that those natives who escaped death hated their tyrants with a deeper hatred than ever, and fixed them the more strongly in their resolution to be avenged. The leading chiefs and warriors of the Ozamas took refuge in the water cave, spying on their enemies and going about to make converts among the islandersat night. It was not long before the watchful Spaniards discovered that mischief was afoot, and there were reasons for believing that the chiefs had their hiding place not many miles from town. By following various suspects into the country, and noticing the time and way of their return, they became convinced that the leaders of the rebellion were somewhere near the lake.A young woman, a slave in the family of the Spanish governor, was so often absent on mysterious errands that the authorities at last fixed on her as the one most likely to betray her countrymen. She was won to their purpose through her vanity. Her mistress had a comb of elaborate and curious workmanship, and to have one like it was the principal object in her existence. The governor told her that she should have this priceless treasure itself if she would tell him where the chiefs were meeting. To this act of treachery she finally agreed on condition that her lover, who was one of the chiefs, should be pardoned. That evening she carried bread and fruit to the lake, and sitting on the bank sang loudly for some minutes. The Spanish soldiers, who were watching from the shrubbery, were astonished to see a man rise like a seal from the water, swim to the shore, take the parcel from the girl’s hands, exchange a few words with her, and disappear again beneath the surface. The song was a signal for one of the men to come out and receive the food, and it was heard through a crevice in the cave roof.Next day the girl sang again, and the whole company left the cave. They had no sooner gained the shore than the Spaniards sprang from the shrubbery and surrounded them. As they were led away to death, one of the chiefs levelled his finger at the girl and said, “I am going to a land of peace. You will never find the way to it.” Her lover cast her off with bitter reproaches. Then, as the murderous volley pealed across the fields, and the rebellion was ended, her heart broke. She still sits at the lakeside in the evening, weeping over her comb.

As in most of the Spanish American countries, so in Porto Rico, ghosts are common,—so common that in some towns the people hardly turn to look at them; and if on a wild night in the hurricane season they hear them gibbering at their doors, they patter anaveor throw a piece of harness at the disturbance, and sleep again. Ponce, for instance, has a number of these spooks, such as the man who searches for his hidden money, and the child with a snowy face that knocks on the panes, then stares fixedly in, with corpse eyes, at the windows. Best known among these supernatural citizens are two lovers who “spoon” on dark nights, and are faintly outlined on the landscape as figures of quivering, smoky blue. Their favorite haunt is their death-place, eight miles from Ponce, in a hollow among limestone hills, now environed by a coffee plantation. Here are found three basins—results of erosion, most likely—that are described as naturalbath-tubs. The middle and largest of these pools is partly filled with silt, probably occluding the entrance to a cavern which formerly opened into it, a fathom or so below the water-surface. This cave was the hiding-place of a native woman whose father had discovered her love for one of Ponce de Leon’s soldiers. He forbade her to have anything to do with the enemies of his country, enlarged on their rapacity, cruelty, and treachery, and tried to create in her a sense of shame that she should have chosen a Spaniard, instead of a Boriqueno chief, for a lover. There were no locksmiths in the Antilles for love to laugh at, but there were spears and knives to fear, and the young couple, who seemed to be inspired by genuine affection, met at this lonely spot to do their courting. On the least suspicion of a hostile approach, the maid could slip into the water, enter the cave, and wait for an hour or a day, until the intruder had retired. However it happened nobody could tell,—or would,—but the Spaniard was found drowned one morning in that pool. He may have been found waiting there, by the angry parent, thrown in, on general principles, and held to the bottom by his steel arms and armor; or he may have been trying to find the cave in which his charmer had secreted herself, and while so engaged may have bumped his head against the rocky wall and stunned himself, or he may have been a poor swimmer and lost his wits and his wind. At all events, drowned he was, and the dusky virgin who loved him, seeinghis form at the bottom of the water, sang her sorrow chant, dived in, and, holding to his body, perished wilfully at his side. Their love endures, and that is why their luminous shadows sit at the brink of the pool, with locked arms and meeting lips, to the disgust of voting women and confirmed bachelors.

This legend, with variants, is found in many parts of the world. There are two or three instances of it in the Hawaiian islands, and a tradition pertaining to Hayti is worth quoting here, as it refers to the same period and illustrates the same enmity between the white and native races. Near the city of San Domingo is, or was, a “water cave,” so named because the entrance to it was several feet below the lake whose shore it undermines. When the young half-breed, Diaz, returned from Spain to his native island of Hispaniola in 1520, his mother, Zameaca, queen of the Ozamas, had disappeared, possibly killed outright by the Spaniards, or more slowly killed by enslavement at the mines in vainly trying to satisfy the rapacity of the white race for gold. Diaz, though partly of Spanish blood, was allied in his sympathies to the Indians. Hence, they planned to make him ruler. Their conspiracy was quelled for the time being, with such brutality that those natives who escaped death hated their tyrants with a deeper hatred than ever, and fixed them the more strongly in their resolution to be avenged. The leading chiefs and warriors of the Ozamas took refuge in the water cave, spying on their enemies and going about to make converts among the islandersat night. It was not long before the watchful Spaniards discovered that mischief was afoot, and there were reasons for believing that the chiefs had their hiding place not many miles from town. By following various suspects into the country, and noticing the time and way of their return, they became convinced that the leaders of the rebellion were somewhere near the lake.

A young woman, a slave in the family of the Spanish governor, was so often absent on mysterious errands that the authorities at last fixed on her as the one most likely to betray her countrymen. She was won to their purpose through her vanity. Her mistress had a comb of elaborate and curious workmanship, and to have one like it was the principal object in her existence. The governor told her that she should have this priceless treasure itself if she would tell him where the chiefs were meeting. To this act of treachery she finally agreed on condition that her lover, who was one of the chiefs, should be pardoned. That evening she carried bread and fruit to the lake, and sitting on the bank sang loudly for some minutes. The Spanish soldiers, who were watching from the shrubbery, were astonished to see a man rise like a seal from the water, swim to the shore, take the parcel from the girl’s hands, exchange a few words with her, and disappear again beneath the surface. The song was a signal for one of the men to come out and receive the food, and it was heard through a crevice in the cave roof.Next day the girl sang again, and the whole company left the cave. They had no sooner gained the shore than the Spaniards sprang from the shrubbery and surrounded them. As they were led away to death, one of the chiefs levelled his finger at the girl and said, “I am going to a land of peace. You will never find the way to it.” Her lover cast her off with bitter reproaches. Then, as the murderous volley pealed across the fields, and the rebellion was ended, her heart broke. She still sits at the lakeside in the evening, weeping over her comb.

How a Dutchman Helped the SpaniardsHad any Dutchman been charged with intending akindnessto the dons when his country was smarting under the Spanish scourge he would have offered the life of some distant relative to disprove the accusation. Without a guess that he could be injuring his own land and enriching that of his enemy, an innocent magistrate of Amsterdam did that for which he would afterward have submitted to the abuse of his friends, and if sackcloth and ashes had been in vogue he would have worn them. It all came about through his wish to be pleasant to a Frenchman, the same being Louis XIV. He sent to this monarch a curiosity in the form of a young coffee-tree, thinking, no doubt, that a warm corner could be found for it in the Jardindes Plantes among the orchids and cacti, and little recking that Louis had a Spanish father-in-law. At that time Holland enjoyed, in her colonies, almost a monopoly of the coffee trade of the world, but that one little tree broke her monopoly, just as one little leak in her dikes led to the eating away of miles ofearthenwall and an in-rush and devastation of the sea.For Louis was more clever than some other kings, almost clever enough to have been in trade, or else he had smart advisers. He had slips cut from the coffee tree, and ere many moons had passed a promising dozen of young plants were ready for shipment to Martinique, the new French colony in the Antilles. A botanist was sent in charge of them, it being the purpose of Louis to turn the island into a coffee plantation and be free of obligation to Holland. The voyage was long, because of head winds and storms, and the precious plants were in peril. Long before the American shores were reached the water supply had run low, and there was much suffering; yet the loyal botanist gave up half of his daily allowance in order that his coffee-trees should live. Salt water would have killed them, and in those days ships had no distilling apparatus. Martinique was reached in safety, however, the little trees struck their roots into congenial soil, and thus the seeds, such as first yielded their aroma to a surprised and gratified Abyssinian chief more than a thousand years before, now spring from the strong earth of the Western world.Whether Spaniards stole some of these trees, or bought them, or whether they got away by accident, certes, they reached Porto Rico, and so became a source of pleasure and profit to people whom the Dutchman did not have in mind when he made his little gift to King Louis. It is believed that all the coffee raised in Batavia for the Dutch also grew from a handful of seeds that had been sent from Arabia to Java. And, oh, that ever the time should have come when France had to buy coffee from her own plant in Porto Rico, and send to that same island for logwood to make claret with,—the kind she sells to New York for bohemian tables d’hote!

Had any Dutchman been charged with intending akindnessto the dons when his country was smarting under the Spanish scourge he would have offered the life of some distant relative to disprove the accusation. Without a guess that he could be injuring his own land and enriching that of his enemy, an innocent magistrate of Amsterdam did that for which he would afterward have submitted to the abuse of his friends, and if sackcloth and ashes had been in vogue he would have worn them. It all came about through his wish to be pleasant to a Frenchman, the same being Louis XIV. He sent to this monarch a curiosity in the form of a young coffee-tree, thinking, no doubt, that a warm corner could be found for it in the Jardindes Plantes among the orchids and cacti, and little recking that Louis had a Spanish father-in-law. At that time Holland enjoyed, in her colonies, almost a monopoly of the coffee trade of the world, but that one little tree broke her monopoly, just as one little leak in her dikes led to the eating away of miles ofearthenwall and an in-rush and devastation of the sea.

For Louis was more clever than some other kings, almost clever enough to have been in trade, or else he had smart advisers. He had slips cut from the coffee tree, and ere many moons had passed a promising dozen of young plants were ready for shipment to Martinique, the new French colony in the Antilles. A botanist was sent in charge of them, it being the purpose of Louis to turn the island into a coffee plantation and be free of obligation to Holland. The voyage was long, because of head winds and storms, and the precious plants were in peril. Long before the American shores were reached the water supply had run low, and there was much suffering; yet the loyal botanist gave up half of his daily allowance in order that his coffee-trees should live. Salt water would have killed them, and in those days ships had no distilling apparatus. Martinique was reached in safety, however, the little trees struck their roots into congenial soil, and thus the seeds, such as first yielded their aroma to a surprised and gratified Abyssinian chief more than a thousand years before, now spring from the strong earth of the Western world.Whether Spaniards stole some of these trees, or bought them, or whether they got away by accident, certes, they reached Porto Rico, and so became a source of pleasure and profit to people whom the Dutchman did not have in mind when he made his little gift to King Louis. It is believed that all the coffee raised in Batavia for the Dutch also grew from a handful of seeds that had been sent from Arabia to Java. And, oh, that ever the time should have come when France had to buy coffee from her own plant in Porto Rico, and send to that same island for logwood to make claret with,—the kind she sells to New York for bohemian tables d’hote!

The Ghost of San GeronimoThe castle of San Geronimo, San Juan de Porto Rico, was founded a century ago. It occupies a rocky point at the east end of San Juan Island, and year by year had been strengthened until, when the American ships appeared in the offing, it was thought important enough to garrison. Six guns were emplaced, two other gun mounts were found by our troops when they entered, and a hole was discovered extending from a dungeon fifteen feet toward the breastworks. This had been freshly dug, and, it is believed, was devised for the storage of explosives, that the citadel might be blown up when the boys in blue entered to take possession. That the fort was abandoned without resorting tothis revengeful and unmilitary act may be due to the ghost. He would naturally be in evidence at such a time, and would do what he could to thwart the schemes of his enemies. For he gave his body to the worms fifty years or more ago. In the flesh he was a revolutionist, and had been dreaming vain things about liberty for his beloved island. It is not recorded that he ever harmed any one, or that his little insurrection attained the dignity of anything more than a rumor and an official chill, but the Spaniards caught him, threw him into the dark prison of this castle, and after he had undergone hunger, thirst, and illness, they went through their usual forms of trial and condemned him to death. This among the civilized would have meant that he would be sent to the gallows or the garrote; but this victim was alleged to have accomplices, and quite likely he was suspected of having a small fund; for the first thing to do when you overthrow a government, or want to, is to pass the hat. To secure the names of his fellow-conspirators, but more especially their money, the revolutionist was therefore consigned to the torture chamber, where the rack, the thumb-screw, the hot irons, the whip, and other survivals of the Inquisition were applied. When the officers had extorted what they wanted, or had made sure there was nothing to extort, the poor, white wreck of a human being was delivered by the judges to an executioner, and a merciful death was inflicted.Shortly after this occurrence the officers of the San Geronimo garrison began to request transfers, and the social set that had been formed in and near the castle was broken up. Gradually the troops thinned away, and although the works were kept in moderate repair and occasionally enlarged, the regular force was finally withdrawn, and even the solitary keepers who were left in charge died unaccountably. This was because the ghost of the tortured one pervaded its damp rooms and breathed blights and curses on the occupants. Its appearance was always heralded by a clatter of hoofs on the stone bridge leading into the court. The on-rush of spectre horses is variously explained, some believing that the dead man is leading an assault on the fort, others wondering if it may not be a conscience-smitten governor hurrying to rescue or reprieve his victim, and arriving too late,—a theory quite generally rejected on the ground that there never was that kind of a Spanish governor.An American officer, who took up his home in San Geronimo after the occupation, was disturbed for three successive nights by the ghost, and on learning the tradition of the place he investigated the palace and brought to light the torture chamber with its rows of hooks and rings and chains about the walls. The piercing of its roof, so that the sun came in and the ghosts and malaria went out, the removal of the grim relics of mediævalism, the cleaning and whitewashing of the apartments, haveprobably induced the spectre to take up his quarters elsewhere, for his old haunts are hardly recognizable, and he can have no grudge against the soldiers of a republic who carried out his plans with a perfection and promptness of which he could not have dreamed.The climate of the West Indies has ever been favorable to the preservation of spirits, and this haunted castle of San Juan has counterparts in the island, and in other islands, and the ghosts are not always victims of the Spaniards, either. The appearance of spectres in the New World was almost contemporary with Columbus. Indeed, one of the most startling of supernatural appearances occurred in the town he founded,—the town of Isabella, Hayti, the first white man’s city in America. It was created by the great navigator on his second voyage, but it remained for only a few years on the map. The dons whom he brought with him refused to work, even when the colony was starving, and reported him in Spain as a tyrant for asking them to put up their own shelters, cook their own food, and grind their own flour. They would not even work in the mines where gold could be seen in the river sands, because they had expected to pick up the metal in lumps, or force it from the natives in such quantities that each adventurer might return with a bushel. Hardship, illness, short commons, the need of occasional labor, the heart-breaks over the gold failure, the retaliationsof the natives for the cruelties and injustices of the invaders, led to the rapid decline of the city of Isabella. Its foundations may still be visible; at least they were a few years ago; but it is peopled only by ghosts. Some years after it had been deserted, two Spaniards, who had been hunting in that part of the island, entered its ruined streets. They had heard from the Indians of strange, booming voices that echoed among its dead houses, but had dismissed this tale as invention or fancy. The sun was low and mists were gathering. As the hunters turned a corner they were astonished to see a company of cavaliers drawn up in double rank, as if for parade, sword on hip, plumed hats aslant, big booted, leather jacketed, grim, and silent. The two men asked whence they had come. The cavaliers spoke no word, but all together lifting their hats in salute, lifted their heads off with them, then melted into air. They were the dead of the fated town. The two spectators fainted with horror, and did not recover their peace of mind in many days.

The castle of San Geronimo, San Juan de Porto Rico, was founded a century ago. It occupies a rocky point at the east end of San Juan Island, and year by year had been strengthened until, when the American ships appeared in the offing, it was thought important enough to garrison. Six guns were emplaced, two other gun mounts were found by our troops when they entered, and a hole was discovered extending from a dungeon fifteen feet toward the breastworks. This had been freshly dug, and, it is believed, was devised for the storage of explosives, that the citadel might be blown up when the boys in blue entered to take possession. That the fort was abandoned without resorting tothis revengeful and unmilitary act may be due to the ghost. He would naturally be in evidence at such a time, and would do what he could to thwart the schemes of his enemies. For he gave his body to the worms fifty years or more ago. In the flesh he was a revolutionist, and had been dreaming vain things about liberty for his beloved island. It is not recorded that he ever harmed any one, or that his little insurrection attained the dignity of anything more than a rumor and an official chill, but the Spaniards caught him, threw him into the dark prison of this castle, and after he had undergone hunger, thirst, and illness, they went through their usual forms of trial and condemned him to death. This among the civilized would have meant that he would be sent to the gallows or the garrote; but this victim was alleged to have accomplices, and quite likely he was suspected of having a small fund; for the first thing to do when you overthrow a government, or want to, is to pass the hat. To secure the names of his fellow-conspirators, but more especially their money, the revolutionist was therefore consigned to the torture chamber, where the rack, the thumb-screw, the hot irons, the whip, and other survivals of the Inquisition were applied. When the officers had extorted what they wanted, or had made sure there was nothing to extort, the poor, white wreck of a human being was delivered by the judges to an executioner, and a merciful death was inflicted.

Shortly after this occurrence the officers of the San Geronimo garrison began to request transfers, and the social set that had been formed in and near the castle was broken up. Gradually the troops thinned away, and although the works were kept in moderate repair and occasionally enlarged, the regular force was finally withdrawn, and even the solitary keepers who were left in charge died unaccountably. This was because the ghost of the tortured one pervaded its damp rooms and breathed blights and curses on the occupants. Its appearance was always heralded by a clatter of hoofs on the stone bridge leading into the court. The on-rush of spectre horses is variously explained, some believing that the dead man is leading an assault on the fort, others wondering if it may not be a conscience-smitten governor hurrying to rescue or reprieve his victim, and arriving too late,—a theory quite generally rejected on the ground that there never was that kind of a Spanish governor.

An American officer, who took up his home in San Geronimo after the occupation, was disturbed for three successive nights by the ghost, and on learning the tradition of the place he investigated the palace and brought to light the torture chamber with its rows of hooks and rings and chains about the walls. The piercing of its roof, so that the sun came in and the ghosts and malaria went out, the removal of the grim relics of mediævalism, the cleaning and whitewashing of the apartments, haveprobably induced the spectre to take up his quarters elsewhere, for his old haunts are hardly recognizable, and he can have no grudge against the soldiers of a republic who carried out his plans with a perfection and promptness of which he could not have dreamed.

The climate of the West Indies has ever been favorable to the preservation of spirits, and this haunted castle of San Juan has counterparts in the island, and in other islands, and the ghosts are not always victims of the Spaniards, either. The appearance of spectres in the New World was almost contemporary with Columbus. Indeed, one of the most startling of supernatural appearances occurred in the town he founded,—the town of Isabella, Hayti, the first white man’s city in America. It was created by the great navigator on his second voyage, but it remained for only a few years on the map. The dons whom he brought with him refused to work, even when the colony was starving, and reported him in Spain as a tyrant for asking them to put up their own shelters, cook their own food, and grind their own flour. They would not even work in the mines where gold could be seen in the river sands, because they had expected to pick up the metal in lumps, or force it from the natives in such quantities that each adventurer might return with a bushel. Hardship, illness, short commons, the need of occasional labor, the heart-breaks over the gold failure, the retaliationsof the natives for the cruelties and injustices of the invaders, led to the rapid decline of the city of Isabella. Its foundations may still be visible; at least they were a few years ago; but it is peopled only by ghosts. Some years after it had been deserted, two Spaniards, who had been hunting in that part of the island, entered its ruined streets. They had heard from the Indians of strange, booming voices that echoed among its dead houses, but had dismissed this tale as invention or fancy. The sun was low and mists were gathering. As the hunters turned a corner they were astonished to see a company of cavaliers drawn up in double rank, as if for parade, sword on hip, plumed hats aslant, big booted, leather jacketed, grim, and silent. The two men asked whence they had come. The cavaliers spoke no word, but all together lifting their hats in salute, lifted their heads off with them, then melted into air. They were the dead of the fated town. The two spectators fainted with horror, and did not recover their peace of mind in many days.

Police Activity in HumacaoFor three centuries a Spanish convict station was kept in Porto Rico. The unpleasant and undesirable found, not a welcome here, but a more congenial company than in the home land. Life was easier because one needed less food and clothes, andthey were furnished by the authorities, anyway. What with the convicts and discontented slaves, it is a wonder that any sort of comfort or safety existed on the island, and especially that so much of pleasant social life was to be found in the cities. Those who knew Porto Rico in those days, however, say that class distinctions were not sharply marked; that the master was kind to the slave, and the slave felt as if he were a member of his master’s family, rather than a dependent; that the two were often seen at the cockpit sitting elbow to elbow, kneeling side by side in the same church, greeting the same friends or cracking the heads of the same enemies before the church doors at Epiphany, and in the humbler homes sitting at the same table.In those simple times the robber gangs were a great vexation. Killing was something to grow used to, and a disagreement over cards was liable to result in having one’s head snipped off by a machete; but to be robbed of one’s machete, or of one’s jug of rum, or of one’s only trousers, was a sad affliction, and soldiers and police were as active as Spanish functionaries could persuade themselves to be, in running down—or walking down—these outlaws. It is said that the detectives were especially amusing. They would go about in such obvious disguises, with misfit wigs, window-glass spectacles, and the costumes of priests or notaries, that a robber could barely keep his countenance when he met them in the street. The thief alwaysescaped, either through the incompetence of the officers, or by sharing his profits with them.But there was one fellow who made such trouble that the police began to chafe beneath the public criticism. To impugn their honor did not hurt them much, though they ruffled a good deal under it, but to threaten them with reduction of pay or removal was a serious matter; so the chief of the San Juan constabulary bestirred himself, after a particularly daring robbery had occurred in his bailiwick, the rogue making off with six thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry. He got safely away from town and was traced to Humacao, where his footprints were found leading to the door of a small, tumble-down, deserted house, and none of these prints could be seen with toes pointing away from it. The chief dismissed his men and prepared to conduct a siege. He had a dagger, a machete, two pistols, and a gun, with a box of ammunition. Thus equipped he went to the front door, gave it a sounding whack with the flat of his machete, and bawled, “Open, in the name of the law!”There was no response, so he struck his weapon impatiently against the panels two or three times and called on the bandit to emerge and give himself up. Again there was no reply. A bolder move was necessary. He pushed open the window, crouching down outside, that he might not become a target for the fellow, who was probably lurking in the dark interior, and after calling on him for a thirdtime to appear and go to jail, he thrust his firearms in and began to blaze in all directions over the floor.After emptying the pistols and gun he shouted, “If you don’t come out I’ll blow you to the bad place, for I have one hundred and fifty cartridges here, and I can surely shoot you.”All this time the robber had been lying on the floor, just below the window, very flat and very still. As the chief did not show himself to take aim, but reached up from his kneeling position and fired at random, the bold, bad man in-doors began to feel a return of confidence. He waited until a second fusillade was over, when he slipped softly through the back door, went around to the front, waited until a third volley had been fired, when he pounced on the chief from behind, and in a trice had a stout rope around him. In a few seconds more he had the astonished and indignant functionary tied securely to one of the posts of the veranda. Then, calmly taking possession of the weapons, he lifted his hat, wished the officer a very good day and a pleasant siesta, and sauntered off to some other town where the police were still less active.

For three centuries a Spanish convict station was kept in Porto Rico. The unpleasant and undesirable found, not a welcome here, but a more congenial company than in the home land. Life was easier because one needed less food and clothes, andthey were furnished by the authorities, anyway. What with the convicts and discontented slaves, it is a wonder that any sort of comfort or safety existed on the island, and especially that so much of pleasant social life was to be found in the cities. Those who knew Porto Rico in those days, however, say that class distinctions were not sharply marked; that the master was kind to the slave, and the slave felt as if he were a member of his master’s family, rather than a dependent; that the two were often seen at the cockpit sitting elbow to elbow, kneeling side by side in the same church, greeting the same friends or cracking the heads of the same enemies before the church doors at Epiphany, and in the humbler homes sitting at the same table.

In those simple times the robber gangs were a great vexation. Killing was something to grow used to, and a disagreement over cards was liable to result in having one’s head snipped off by a machete; but to be robbed of one’s machete, or of one’s jug of rum, or of one’s only trousers, was a sad affliction, and soldiers and police were as active as Spanish functionaries could persuade themselves to be, in running down—or walking down—these outlaws. It is said that the detectives were especially amusing. They would go about in such obvious disguises, with misfit wigs, window-glass spectacles, and the costumes of priests or notaries, that a robber could barely keep his countenance when he met them in the street. The thief alwaysescaped, either through the incompetence of the officers, or by sharing his profits with them.

But there was one fellow who made such trouble that the police began to chafe beneath the public criticism. To impugn their honor did not hurt them much, though they ruffled a good deal under it, but to threaten them with reduction of pay or removal was a serious matter; so the chief of the San Juan constabulary bestirred himself, after a particularly daring robbery had occurred in his bailiwick, the rogue making off with six thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry. He got safely away from town and was traced to Humacao, where his footprints were found leading to the door of a small, tumble-down, deserted house, and none of these prints could be seen with toes pointing away from it. The chief dismissed his men and prepared to conduct a siege. He had a dagger, a machete, two pistols, and a gun, with a box of ammunition. Thus equipped he went to the front door, gave it a sounding whack with the flat of his machete, and bawled, “Open, in the name of the law!”

There was no response, so he struck his weapon impatiently against the panels two or three times and called on the bandit to emerge and give himself up. Again there was no reply. A bolder move was necessary. He pushed open the window, crouching down outside, that he might not become a target for the fellow, who was probably lurking in the dark interior, and after calling on him for a thirdtime to appear and go to jail, he thrust his firearms in and began to blaze in all directions over the floor.

After emptying the pistols and gun he shouted, “If you don’t come out I’ll blow you to the bad place, for I have one hundred and fifty cartridges here, and I can surely shoot you.”

All this time the robber had been lying on the floor, just below the window, very flat and very still. As the chief did not show himself to take aim, but reached up from his kneeling position and fired at random, the bold, bad man in-doors began to feel a return of confidence. He waited until a second fusillade was over, when he slipped softly through the back door, went around to the front, waited until a third volley had been fired, when he pounced on the chief from behind, and in a trice had a stout rope around him. In a few seconds more he had the astonished and indignant functionary tied securely to one of the posts of the veranda. Then, calmly taking possession of the weapons, he lifted his hat, wished the officer a very good day and a pleasant siesta, and sauntered off to some other town where the police were still less active.

The Church in Porto RicoIf the Spanish colonies have been immoral, it must be granted that they have been religious. This fact has made them easier to govern, for the words of the priests and friars have been accepted asdivinely inspired at times when, as a matter of fact, they have been inspired only by the governor or the garrison colonel. The church in the colonies is nothing like the modern and American institution that we know. It is a survival from the Middle Ages. Yet it has shown shrewdness in Porto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines, its prosperity proving that the Spaniard can be a thrifty mortal whether he wears a monkish cowl or a military uniform. Much money has been demanded by the church, but much of it has been honestly spent in the beautifying of altars and the dressing of the statues. Our Lady of the Remedies, in the Church of La Providencia, San Juan, for example, wears a cloak worth fifteen hundred dollars, and is emblazoned with twenty thousand dollars’ worth of jewels; but then, she is the patron of the island. The priests have been quick to see an advantage in benefits or disasters and have often impressed the natives by lessons drawn from natural phenomena. Thus, in 1867, a conspiracy for the overthrow of Spanish rule had been organized, and violence was hourly expected: but on the eve of an uprising the island was shaken by an earthquake. The priests made the most of this, assuring the natives that it was a warning from heaven never to interfere with Spaniards; so the insurrectos stealthily laid down their arms and stole away to their various substitutes for employment, leaving their Lexington unfought.In one way this willingness to keep out of fights hasbeen a bad thing for the island, because insurrection became a matter of business with some of the natives. They used it as a mode of blackmail. These insurrectos would throw a wealthy planter into a state of alarm by pretending to hold meetings on his premises. He knew that if the authorities got wind of this it might go hard with him, for if he were suspected of being a member of a lodge of the White Saber or the Red Hand, it could mean imprisonment, perhaps death; so he paid the revolution something to move on and occur on some other man’s land. By levying thus on fear and policy a few members of an alleged junta managed to live quite comfortably without work, and it is whispered that the padres of certain villages received their share of the reluctant tributes.Porto Rico has been the place of abode of some noted fathers of the church, including two martyrs who were canonized by Pius IX. as saints: Charles Spinola and Jerome de Angelis. They left Portugal for Goa in 1596, but having been blown far out of their course, they put in at this island to repair their ship, and there for two months they preached with success. On their return to Lisbon they were captured by English pirates, who treated them kindly, however, and set them safely down in London. They reached Portugal eventually, and ended their work in Japan, where the people killed them. These and other saints receive the prayers of the people on stated occasions, for in Porto Rico the saints havenot only their special days, but their special crops, and guard them from special injuries. Thus, the farmer prays to St. James, it is said, when he asks for deliverance from tobacco-worms, while he must address St. Martial if he wants to free his field from ants.Of the holy hermits who have resided on the island, several have dwelt in the caves where Caribs or Arawaks buried their dead, but the best-known shrine is that of Hormigueros. The Church of Our Lady of Monserrate, which crowns a hill and is a conspicuous landmark, is said to have been copied from the chapel of a Benedictine monastery in Barcelona, which is famous in Spain for its statue of the Virgin, carved by St. Luke and carried to Barcelona in the year 50 by St. Peter. The Monserrate church was founded in 1640 by a poor farmer. He had been ploughing over the hill-top, though weak with fever, and before he could finish his work he fell to the ground exhausted. After he had partly recovered, and had gone back to the plough, he turned a tile up from the earth, on which was engraved a portrait of the Virgin, and no sooner had he taken this object into his hands than his pain, his fever, his lassitude disappeared. Convinced that the relic was sacred, he carried it to his priest, and on that very day he gave the land he had ploughed for a votive church. It has become the best known sanctuary in Porto Rico, for the large painting of the Virgin, copied from the smaller portrait on the tile, is just as potentas the original in curing diseases. In the last half-century a hundred miracles have been performed, and the silver and golden arms, legs, ears, eyes, fingers, feet, livers, and hearts that have been given to the church, in thanks and testimony, amount in value to sixty thousand dollars; for a patient who has been cured or helped is expected to send a little model, in precious metal, of the part of him that needed mending. At intervals these offerings are melted up for the altar service and decorations, and few churches in America have such resplendent candlesticks, chalices, draperies and vestments. The altar is of silver plates, and the gold cross upon it weighs thirteen pounds. Pilgrims to Hormigueros go from all parts of the West Indies. They are lodged, free of charge, in an old house behind the church, each cripple or invalid receiving a bed and chair, but no food. The pilgrims must supply their own sustenance. On entering the church, in procession, they are sprinkled with water from the Jordan, and then kneel before the cross, where the cures are worked.

If the Spanish colonies have been immoral, it must be granted that they have been religious. This fact has made them easier to govern, for the words of the priests and friars have been accepted asdivinely inspired at times when, as a matter of fact, they have been inspired only by the governor or the garrison colonel. The church in the colonies is nothing like the modern and American institution that we know. It is a survival from the Middle Ages. Yet it has shown shrewdness in Porto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines, its prosperity proving that the Spaniard can be a thrifty mortal whether he wears a monkish cowl or a military uniform. Much money has been demanded by the church, but much of it has been honestly spent in the beautifying of altars and the dressing of the statues. Our Lady of the Remedies, in the Church of La Providencia, San Juan, for example, wears a cloak worth fifteen hundred dollars, and is emblazoned with twenty thousand dollars’ worth of jewels; but then, she is the patron of the island. The priests have been quick to see an advantage in benefits or disasters and have often impressed the natives by lessons drawn from natural phenomena. Thus, in 1867, a conspiracy for the overthrow of Spanish rule had been organized, and violence was hourly expected: but on the eve of an uprising the island was shaken by an earthquake. The priests made the most of this, assuring the natives that it was a warning from heaven never to interfere with Spaniards; so the insurrectos stealthily laid down their arms and stole away to their various substitutes for employment, leaving their Lexington unfought.

In one way this willingness to keep out of fights hasbeen a bad thing for the island, because insurrection became a matter of business with some of the natives. They used it as a mode of blackmail. These insurrectos would throw a wealthy planter into a state of alarm by pretending to hold meetings on his premises. He knew that if the authorities got wind of this it might go hard with him, for if he were suspected of being a member of a lodge of the White Saber or the Red Hand, it could mean imprisonment, perhaps death; so he paid the revolution something to move on and occur on some other man’s land. By levying thus on fear and policy a few members of an alleged junta managed to live quite comfortably without work, and it is whispered that the padres of certain villages received their share of the reluctant tributes.

Porto Rico has been the place of abode of some noted fathers of the church, including two martyrs who were canonized by Pius IX. as saints: Charles Spinola and Jerome de Angelis. They left Portugal for Goa in 1596, but having been blown far out of their course, they put in at this island to repair their ship, and there for two months they preached with success. On their return to Lisbon they were captured by English pirates, who treated them kindly, however, and set them safely down in London. They reached Portugal eventually, and ended their work in Japan, where the people killed them. These and other saints receive the prayers of the people on stated occasions, for in Porto Rico the saints havenot only their special days, but their special crops, and guard them from special injuries. Thus, the farmer prays to St. James, it is said, when he asks for deliverance from tobacco-worms, while he must address St. Martial if he wants to free his field from ants.

Of the holy hermits who have resided on the island, several have dwelt in the caves where Caribs or Arawaks buried their dead, but the best-known shrine is that of Hormigueros. The Church of Our Lady of Monserrate, which crowns a hill and is a conspicuous landmark, is said to have been copied from the chapel of a Benedictine monastery in Barcelona, which is famous in Spain for its statue of the Virgin, carved by St. Luke and carried to Barcelona in the year 50 by St. Peter. The Monserrate church was founded in 1640 by a poor farmer. He had been ploughing over the hill-top, though weak with fever, and before he could finish his work he fell to the ground exhausted. After he had partly recovered, and had gone back to the plough, he turned a tile up from the earth, on which was engraved a portrait of the Virgin, and no sooner had he taken this object into his hands than his pain, his fever, his lassitude disappeared. Convinced that the relic was sacred, he carried it to his priest, and on that very day he gave the land he had ploughed for a votive church. It has become the best known sanctuary in Porto Rico, for the large painting of the Virgin, copied from the smaller portrait on the tile, is just as potentas the original in curing diseases. In the last half-century a hundred miracles have been performed, and the silver and golden arms, legs, ears, eyes, fingers, feet, livers, and hearts that have been given to the church, in thanks and testimony, amount in value to sixty thousand dollars; for a patient who has been cured or helped is expected to send a little model, in precious metal, of the part of him that needed mending. At intervals these offerings are melted up for the altar service and decorations, and few churches in America have such resplendent candlesticks, chalices, draperies and vestments. The altar is of silver plates, and the gold cross upon it weighs thirteen pounds. Pilgrims to Hormigueros go from all parts of the West Indies. They are lodged, free of charge, in an old house behind the church, each cripple or invalid receiving a bed and chair, but no food. The pilgrims must supply their own sustenance. On entering the church, in procession, they are sprinkled with water from the Jordan, and then kneel before the cross, where the cures are worked.

The MermaidsIn dime museums and county fairs one may still find among the “attractions” a mermaid, dried and stuffed, consisting of the upper half of a monkey artlessly joined to the lower half or two-thirds of a codfish, the monkey’s head usually adorned with a handful of oakum or horse-hair. When this kindof thing was first exhibited by the lamented P. T. Barnum, it is just possible that some bumpkin really believed it to be a mermaid, but the invention has become so common of late that it is found in the curio-shops of every town, and as an eye-catching device is often put into show-cases by some merchant who deals in anything rather than mermaids. Trite and ridiculous as this patchwork appears, it symbolizes a belief of full three thousand years. Men have always been prone to fill with imaginations what they have never sounded with their senses, and it is to this tendency we owe poetry and the arts. The sea was a mystery, and is so still. It was easy to people its twilight depths with forms of grace and beauty and power, for surely the denizens taken from it were strange enough to warrant strange beliefs.And so the old faith in men and women who lived beneath the water was passed down from generation to generation, and from race to race, changing but little from age to age. Ulysses stopped the ears of his crew with wax that they should not hear the sirens luring them toward the rocks as his ship sailed by, and knowing the magic of their song had himself bound to the mast, so, hearing the ravishing music, he might not escape if he would. In a later day we hear of the Lorelei singing on her rock, striking chords on her golden harp, and, as the raptured fisherman steered close, with eyes filled by her beauty and ears by her music, he had a moment’sconsciousness of a skull leering at him and harsh laughter clattering in echoes along the shore; then his boat struck and filled, and the dark flood curtained off the sky. Wagner has made familiar the legend of the Rhine daughters, singing impossibly under the river as they swim about the reef of gold,—the treasure stolen by the gnome, Alberich, who in that act brought envy, strife, greed, and injustice into the world, and accomplished the destruction of the gods themselves. The wild tales of Britain and Brittany, of thefts and revenges by the sea-creatures, are among the oldest of their myths, and when we cross to our side of the sea, the ocean people are close in our wake and they follow us through the fresh waters and far out in the Pacific.Among the Antilles, as in the South Seas, the tritons blow their conchs and shake their shaggy heads, while the daughters of the deep gather, at certain seasons, on the water, or about some favorite rock, and sing. Always, in Eastern versions of the myth, there is music, save in the case of Melusina, who became a half fish only on Saturdays, when her husband was supposed not to be watching, and this music follows the myth around the world. Among the vague traditions of certain Alaskan Indians is one of an immigration from Asia, under lead of “a creature resembling a man, with long, green hair and beard, whose lower part was a fish; or, rather, each leg a fish.” He charmed them so with his singing that they followed him, unconsciously,and reached America. We find in Canada the tale of a dusky Undine, a soulless water sprite, who, through love of a mortal, became human. Some of the beings of the sea were of more than human power and authority,—gods, in fact; barbarian Neptunes. Such was the Pacific god, Rau Raku, who, being entangled in a fishing-net, was lugged to the surface, sputtering tremendously. Yet he had no grudge against the fisherman. That trembling unfortunate was too small for his revenge. He would devastate the whole earth to which he had been thus unceremoniously dragged, and, bidding his captor take himself away while he made trouble, he deluged the globe until all upon it had perished, except the fish, the fisherman, and a few land animals that the sole human survivor had taken to a lofty island with him.The mermaid of story was a damsel fair to view, until she had risen from the waves so as to show her fish-like ending. It was her habit to sit on sunny beaches, comb her golden hair with a golden comb, and sing delightfully, though her wilder sisters would perch on juts of rock on lonely islands and scream in frightening ways when a gale was coming. When the sea-maidens went ashore they sometimes met sailors and fishermen, and if they liked these strangers a frank avowal of love was made; for it is always leap year in the ocean. It was a most uncomfortable position for a mortal to be placed in, especially one who had a wife waiting for him athome, because if their addresses were rejected the mermaids were liable to throw stones, and always with fatal results; or they would brew mists, and set loose awful storms; yet, if the man who inspired this affection was not coy, and yielded to one of these slippery denizens, she dragged him under the sea forthwith, unless he could persuade her to compromise on a cave or a lonely rock as a home, for it is reputed that mortals have formally wedded them and raised amphibious families. On the Isle of Man they tell of one caught in a net, who was woman to the waist and fish as to the rest of her. As she sulked in captivity, refusing to eat or speak,—perhaps they forgot to offer raw fish for her supper,—it was decided to let her escape; and as she wriggled over the beach she was heard to tell her people (in Manx?), as they arose to greet her, that the earth-men did nothing wonderful except to throw away water in which they had boiled eggs!The home of the mermaids was at the bottom of the deep. A diver, who said he had reached it, reported a region of clear water, lighted from below by great, white stones and pyramids of crystal. These haunts contained bowers of coral, gardens of bright sea weeds and mosses, tables and chairs of amber, floors of iridescent shell and pearls, gems strewn about the jasper grottoes,—diamonds, rubies, topazes,—and the sea people had combs and ornaments of gold. Columbus was disappointed in the mermaids that he saw in the Caribbean. Theywere not, to his eyes, so handsome as the romancers had alleged, nor were their voices sweet. The doubters claim that he was asleep when the mermaids appeared, and that he saw nothing but the sea cow, or manatee, which is neither tuneful nor pretty.

In dime museums and county fairs one may still find among the “attractions” a mermaid, dried and stuffed, consisting of the upper half of a monkey artlessly joined to the lower half or two-thirds of a codfish, the monkey’s head usually adorned with a handful of oakum or horse-hair. When this kindof thing was first exhibited by the lamented P. T. Barnum, it is just possible that some bumpkin really believed it to be a mermaid, but the invention has become so common of late that it is found in the curio-shops of every town, and as an eye-catching device is often put into show-cases by some merchant who deals in anything rather than mermaids. Trite and ridiculous as this patchwork appears, it symbolizes a belief of full three thousand years. Men have always been prone to fill with imaginations what they have never sounded with their senses, and it is to this tendency we owe poetry and the arts. The sea was a mystery, and is so still. It was easy to people its twilight depths with forms of grace and beauty and power, for surely the denizens taken from it were strange enough to warrant strange beliefs.

And so the old faith in men and women who lived beneath the water was passed down from generation to generation, and from race to race, changing but little from age to age. Ulysses stopped the ears of his crew with wax that they should not hear the sirens luring them toward the rocks as his ship sailed by, and knowing the magic of their song had himself bound to the mast, so, hearing the ravishing music, he might not escape if he would. In a later day we hear of the Lorelei singing on her rock, striking chords on her golden harp, and, as the raptured fisherman steered close, with eyes filled by her beauty and ears by her music, he had a moment’sconsciousness of a skull leering at him and harsh laughter clattering in echoes along the shore; then his boat struck and filled, and the dark flood curtained off the sky. Wagner has made familiar the legend of the Rhine daughters, singing impossibly under the river as they swim about the reef of gold,—the treasure stolen by the gnome, Alberich, who in that act brought envy, strife, greed, and injustice into the world, and accomplished the destruction of the gods themselves. The wild tales of Britain and Brittany, of thefts and revenges by the sea-creatures, are among the oldest of their myths, and when we cross to our side of the sea, the ocean people are close in our wake and they follow us through the fresh waters and far out in the Pacific.

Among the Antilles, as in the South Seas, the tritons blow their conchs and shake their shaggy heads, while the daughters of the deep gather, at certain seasons, on the water, or about some favorite rock, and sing. Always, in Eastern versions of the myth, there is music, save in the case of Melusina, who became a half fish only on Saturdays, when her husband was supposed not to be watching, and this music follows the myth around the world. Among the vague traditions of certain Alaskan Indians is one of an immigration from Asia, under lead of “a creature resembling a man, with long, green hair and beard, whose lower part was a fish; or, rather, each leg a fish.” He charmed them so with his singing that they followed him, unconsciously,and reached America. We find in Canada the tale of a dusky Undine, a soulless water sprite, who, through love of a mortal, became human. Some of the beings of the sea were of more than human power and authority,—gods, in fact; barbarian Neptunes. Such was the Pacific god, Rau Raku, who, being entangled in a fishing-net, was lugged to the surface, sputtering tremendously. Yet he had no grudge against the fisherman. That trembling unfortunate was too small for his revenge. He would devastate the whole earth to which he had been thus unceremoniously dragged, and, bidding his captor take himself away while he made trouble, he deluged the globe until all upon it had perished, except the fish, the fisherman, and a few land animals that the sole human survivor had taken to a lofty island with him.

The mermaid of story was a damsel fair to view, until she had risen from the waves so as to show her fish-like ending. It was her habit to sit on sunny beaches, comb her golden hair with a golden comb, and sing delightfully, though her wilder sisters would perch on juts of rock on lonely islands and scream in frightening ways when a gale was coming. When the sea-maidens went ashore they sometimes met sailors and fishermen, and if they liked these strangers a frank avowal of love was made; for it is always leap year in the ocean. It was a most uncomfortable position for a mortal to be placed in, especially one who had a wife waiting for him athome, because if their addresses were rejected the mermaids were liable to throw stones, and always with fatal results; or they would brew mists, and set loose awful storms; yet, if the man who inspired this affection was not coy, and yielded to one of these slippery denizens, she dragged him under the sea forthwith, unless he could persuade her to compromise on a cave or a lonely rock as a home, for it is reputed that mortals have formally wedded them and raised amphibious families. On the Isle of Man they tell of one caught in a net, who was woman to the waist and fish as to the rest of her. As she sulked in captivity, refusing to eat or speak,—perhaps they forgot to offer raw fish for her supper,—it was decided to let her escape; and as she wriggled over the beach she was heard to tell her people (in Manx?), as they arose to greet her, that the earth-men did nothing wonderful except to throw away water in which they had boiled eggs!

The home of the mermaids was at the bottom of the deep. A diver, who said he had reached it, reported a region of clear water, lighted from below by great, white stones and pyramids of crystal. These haunts contained bowers of coral, gardens of bright sea weeds and mosses, tables and chairs of amber, floors of iridescent shell and pearls, gems strewn about the jasper grottoes,—diamonds, rubies, topazes,—and the sea people had combs and ornaments of gold. Columbus was disappointed in the mermaids that he saw in the Caribbean. Theywere not, to his eyes, so handsome as the romancers had alleged, nor were their voices sweet. The doubters claim that he was asleep when the mermaids appeared, and that he saw nothing but the sea cow, or manatee, which is neither tuneful nor pretty.

The AboriginesIn following the southern coast of Cuba, Columbus supposed he was working toward India. He died ignorant of the fact that he had discovered a new world, and he gave up the exploration of this island when almost in sight of open water at its western end. Of the first inhabitants of Cuba (called by some Macaca, and by others Caboi, “land of the dead,” for the people killed their prisoners), little is known, for they were exterminated as a distinct race, and their few relics were disregarded as worthless or destroyed as idolatrous. It is believed, however, that they had some knowledge of the arts; they worked gold into ornaments, and copper and stone into tools and weapons, and they wore helmets of feathers, like those of the Hawaiian chiefs. Near Bayamo have been found farming tools, painted pottery, and little statuettes supposed to represent gods. Their houses were hardly more than shelters, frames of bamboo or light boughs, though they were prettily environed by walks and flowers, and their clothing—sometimes of fur, oftener of leaves and coarse cloth—was of the scantiest. Heavy dresses in a tropic country, or in a temperate country in tropic weather, are manifestly absurd.As on the other Antilles, the people of Cuba were brown, broad, straight-haired, flat-faced, and decorated with slashes and tattooing. They were singularly mild, honest, and trusting. They were frightened by the Spanish ships, believing them to be great birds that had come down from the sky, bringing the white adventurers in their brave array; but when Columbus had sent a few beads and hawks’ bells to them, they expressed their confidence and delight in a hundred ways, swam and rowed about his caravel offering fish and fruit, not in trade, but as gifts, and when a crowd of hungry sailors ashore invited themselves to a feast that had been prepared for a religious ceremony the Indians made no objection, because they could prepare one like it by another night’s work. Food, indeed, was free to whoso needed it, like air and water, and no stranger needed to go hungry. While the Spaniards did little to invite their confidence, were insolent to most other people and even to one another, the Indians set an example of charity in conduct and in faith. The dons were intolerant of all religions except their own, whereas the Cubans were quick to realize that the performance of the mass was of some sacred significance, and they preserved a reverent attitude throughout a ceremony whose details they did not understand. When missionarywork had fairly begun it is said that some Spaniards drove Indians into the water, forcibly baptized them, then cut their throats that they might not repent their acceptance of the true faith. In their own belief there appeared to be a purgatory and a paradise, but no hell or devil; and, as beliefs reveal the character of the people who hold them, it speaks well for the Cubans that the grewsome images invoked by certain mediæval theologians had never been created in their more generous imaginations. When a soul left the body it had two journeys before it: one to a dismal place, where the cruel and unjust awaited; the other to a fair land, like the best of earth, where all was pleasant and peaceful; for, in spite of the warlike undertakings made necessary by irruptions of the fierce Caribs, these people held to peace as the highest good.Of these Indians hardly a dozen are remembered by their names, but the chief Hatuey was revered among them for his courage and his military skill. He had fled from Hayti to Cuba in a vain hope of escaping his white enemy, and counselled the natives to throw all their gold into the sea, that the Spanish might not linger on their coasts. He might have been the one who ordered gold to be melted and poured down the throats of his prisoners, that for one and the last time they might have enough. The Spaniards caught him and burned him to death at Baracoa. As he stood on the logs in chains, just before the flames were applied, the friars pressedabout him and earnestly advised him to become a Christian, that he might not be required to roast in hell, which would be worse than the torture he was about to endure, and which would last forever. If only he would be baptized he could go direct to heaven. “The white man’s heaven?” he asked. “Yes.” “Are there any Spaniards in that heaven?” “Oh, yes, many.” “Then light the fire.”Columbus was the more convinced that he had reached Asia because the name of one Cuban province, Mangon, he assumed to be Mangi, a rich district of China. That its people had tails, like monkeys, was nothing against this theory; that footprints of alligators should be the tracks of griffins, which had the bodies of lions and the wings and heads of eagles, was quite in order; but most convincing of all was the discovery by an archer, who had entered a wood in search of game, of thirty men with pale faces, armed with clubs and lances, and habited in white gowns, like friars. The man fled in fear. When his comrades returned with him to find this white company, not a human being appeared to them, and, except for the chatter of birds and the clicking of land-crabs as they scuttled over the stones, the place was still. The coast Indians were understood to say that among the mountains dwelt a chief whom they called a saint, who wore a flowing robe of white and never spoke aloud, ordering his subjects by signs. This was surely Prester John, the shadowy king of a shadowy kingdom, ofwhom much was said and written a few centuries ago. He was declared by one author to rule a part of India and was reputed to be a Nestorian priest who had made himself king of the Naymans. Other travellers placed him in China, Persia, and Timbuctoo. In a battle with the infidel Tartars Prester John mounted a number of bronze men on horseback, each figure belching clouds of smoke from a fire of punk within, and lashed the horses against the enemy, filling them with such terror, and so veiling in smoke the dash of his flesh and blood cavalry, that his victory was easy. So, it was a great satisfaction to Columbus to think that he had reached the confines of a Christian kingdom.While working through the thousand little islands off the southern coast of Cuba, that he called the Queen’s Gardens, Columbus found added reason for believing that this was the Asiatic shore, and he hoped shortly to reach Cipango, or Japan, where pearls and precious stones abounded, and where the king abode in a palace covered with plates of gold more than an inch thick. The attempts of the Mongols to overrun the Asian islands were defeated, because the Cipangalese were invulnerable, having placed between the skin and the flesh of their right arms a little stone that made them safe against swords, arrows, clubs, and slings. The people of Cuba fell too easy a prey to Spanish blades—of both sorts—to allow a belief like this to last long.That Columbus thought he was approaching theearthly paradise, the mountain-guarded Eden where our first parents lived, when he neared these lovely shores, inhaled the fragrance of fruits and flowers, heard the cries of birds and saw the flash of bright waters, is probable. That paradise he sought. The serpent of oppression and wrong has left it, and as America comes into her own, that paradise shall be.

In following the southern coast of Cuba, Columbus supposed he was working toward India. He died ignorant of the fact that he had discovered a new world, and he gave up the exploration of this island when almost in sight of open water at its western end. Of the first inhabitants of Cuba (called by some Macaca, and by others Caboi, “land of the dead,” for the people killed their prisoners), little is known, for they were exterminated as a distinct race, and their few relics were disregarded as worthless or destroyed as idolatrous. It is believed, however, that they had some knowledge of the arts; they worked gold into ornaments, and copper and stone into tools and weapons, and they wore helmets of feathers, like those of the Hawaiian chiefs. Near Bayamo have been found farming tools, painted pottery, and little statuettes supposed to represent gods. Their houses were hardly more than shelters, frames of bamboo or light boughs, though they were prettily environed by walks and flowers, and their clothing—sometimes of fur, oftener of leaves and coarse cloth—was of the scantiest. Heavy dresses in a tropic country, or in a temperate country in tropic weather, are manifestly absurd.

As on the other Antilles, the people of Cuba were brown, broad, straight-haired, flat-faced, and decorated with slashes and tattooing. They were singularly mild, honest, and trusting. They were frightened by the Spanish ships, believing them to be great birds that had come down from the sky, bringing the white adventurers in their brave array; but when Columbus had sent a few beads and hawks’ bells to them, they expressed their confidence and delight in a hundred ways, swam and rowed about his caravel offering fish and fruit, not in trade, but as gifts, and when a crowd of hungry sailors ashore invited themselves to a feast that had been prepared for a religious ceremony the Indians made no objection, because they could prepare one like it by another night’s work. Food, indeed, was free to whoso needed it, like air and water, and no stranger needed to go hungry. While the Spaniards did little to invite their confidence, were insolent to most other people and even to one another, the Indians set an example of charity in conduct and in faith. The dons were intolerant of all religions except their own, whereas the Cubans were quick to realize that the performance of the mass was of some sacred significance, and they preserved a reverent attitude throughout a ceremony whose details they did not understand. When missionarywork had fairly begun it is said that some Spaniards drove Indians into the water, forcibly baptized them, then cut their throats that they might not repent their acceptance of the true faith. In their own belief there appeared to be a purgatory and a paradise, but no hell or devil; and, as beliefs reveal the character of the people who hold them, it speaks well for the Cubans that the grewsome images invoked by certain mediæval theologians had never been created in their more generous imaginations. When a soul left the body it had two journeys before it: one to a dismal place, where the cruel and unjust awaited; the other to a fair land, like the best of earth, where all was pleasant and peaceful; for, in spite of the warlike undertakings made necessary by irruptions of the fierce Caribs, these people held to peace as the highest good.

Of these Indians hardly a dozen are remembered by their names, but the chief Hatuey was revered among them for his courage and his military skill. He had fled from Hayti to Cuba in a vain hope of escaping his white enemy, and counselled the natives to throw all their gold into the sea, that the Spanish might not linger on their coasts. He might have been the one who ordered gold to be melted and poured down the throats of his prisoners, that for one and the last time they might have enough. The Spaniards caught him and burned him to death at Baracoa. As he stood on the logs in chains, just before the flames were applied, the friars pressedabout him and earnestly advised him to become a Christian, that he might not be required to roast in hell, which would be worse than the torture he was about to endure, and which would last forever. If only he would be baptized he could go direct to heaven. “The white man’s heaven?” he asked. “Yes.” “Are there any Spaniards in that heaven?” “Oh, yes, many.” “Then light the fire.”

Columbus was the more convinced that he had reached Asia because the name of one Cuban province, Mangon, he assumed to be Mangi, a rich district of China. That its people had tails, like monkeys, was nothing against this theory; that footprints of alligators should be the tracks of griffins, which had the bodies of lions and the wings and heads of eagles, was quite in order; but most convincing of all was the discovery by an archer, who had entered a wood in search of game, of thirty men with pale faces, armed with clubs and lances, and habited in white gowns, like friars. The man fled in fear. When his comrades returned with him to find this white company, not a human being appeared to them, and, except for the chatter of birds and the clicking of land-crabs as they scuttled over the stones, the place was still. The coast Indians were understood to say that among the mountains dwelt a chief whom they called a saint, who wore a flowing robe of white and never spoke aloud, ordering his subjects by signs. This was surely Prester John, the shadowy king of a shadowy kingdom, ofwhom much was said and written a few centuries ago. He was declared by one author to rule a part of India and was reputed to be a Nestorian priest who had made himself king of the Naymans. Other travellers placed him in China, Persia, and Timbuctoo. In a battle with the infidel Tartars Prester John mounted a number of bronze men on horseback, each figure belching clouds of smoke from a fire of punk within, and lashed the horses against the enemy, filling them with such terror, and so veiling in smoke the dash of his flesh and blood cavalry, that his victory was easy. So, it was a great satisfaction to Columbus to think that he had reached the confines of a Christian kingdom.

While working through the thousand little islands off the southern coast of Cuba, that he called the Queen’s Gardens, Columbus found added reason for believing that this was the Asiatic shore, and he hoped shortly to reach Cipango, or Japan, where pearls and precious stones abounded, and where the king abode in a palace covered with plates of gold more than an inch thick. The attempts of the Mongols to overrun the Asian islands were defeated, because the Cipangalese were invulnerable, having placed between the skin and the flesh of their right arms a little stone that made them safe against swords, arrows, clubs, and slings. The people of Cuba fell too easy a prey to Spanish blades—of both sorts—to allow a belief like this to last long.

That Columbus thought he was approaching theearthly paradise, the mountain-guarded Eden where our first parents lived, when he neared these lovely shores, inhaled the fragrance of fruits and flowers, heard the cries of birds and saw the flash of bright waters, is probable. That paradise he sought. The serpent of oppression and wrong has left it, and as America comes into her own, that paradise shall be.

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