168 CHAPTER V. THE OCCUPATION OF CUBA. HE moft difficult thing, after discovering anything like general rules, is to know when to break through them. It is from not attending fufficiently to this latter difficulty, that three of the principal hiftorians who have written on the fubject of the Spanish conquefts, have, as I venture to think, fallen into confiderable error, and have made books which none but those who have a love for history will read. Peter Martyr, Las Cafas, and Herrera have all endeavoured in their histories to maintain chronological order, a very defirable thing, no doubt, as a general rule, but abfolutely incompatible with a clear understanding of the various, complicated and place-shifting events which these historians had to chronicle. However a fingle drama may be bound down by the Unities, the story of history will not confine itself to any fuch nice rules, and the attempt to make it accurate in one respect often lets in a flood of confufion in others. The hiftorian, it is true, is accurate in point of time; but the reader's apprehension is entirely confused by a narrative which requires his imagination to fly from place to place, or to be nearly ubiquitous, and his memory to retain before it at the fame moment several independent trains of fact and reasoning. I make the foregoing remarks to explain why, though in general striving to maintain the order of time, I have nevertheless related, without any break, the principal circumstances connected with the first occupation of the Terra Firma. The reader may now, to a certain extent, difmiss that course of events from his mind, remembering the main outlines of the story; namely, that the northern coast of South America has been investigated and traverfed, the great South Sea discovered, the Indians fubjugated, enflaved, or driven away from the coaft, two or three cities founded, and a very large proportion of the Spaniards destroyed by disease, famine, hardship, and the affaults of Indians. The occupation of Cuba by the Spaniards is the next great stepping-stone in this history. It was from Cuba that two or three of the most important expeditions, fuch as that of Francifco de Cordova to Campechy Bay, of Juan Grijalva to Cuba first difcovered by Columbus. Yucatan, and of Cortes to Mexico, were directed; it was at Cuba that Las Cafas commenced his career of humanity; and the settlement of the Spaniards in that island affords a memorable example of their general policy and conduct towards the Indians. Cuba was discovered by Columbus in the course of his first voyage; but it seems not to have been much regarded by the Spaniards for fome years. They were doubtful, indeed, whether it was an island, until king Ferdinand directed Ovando to investigate the fact, when he dispatched Ocampo to coast about Cuba, who afcertained that it was an island. The difpofition of the inhabitants was fimilar to that of the Indians in Hifpaniola and hitherto thofe Spaniards who had been thrown upon the coaft of Cuba, had for the most part experienced nothing but kind treatment from the natives. One of the Caciques was called Comendador, having been baptized by fome Spaniards, and having chofen this name from the title of Ovando, the governor of Hifpaniola, who was a Comendador of the order of Alcantara. It chanced that a ship, paffing by that part of the coaft, which is near to the Cape de la Cruz, left there a young mariner who was fick, but who afterwards recovered. This mariner placed an image of the Virgin Mary in one of the houses of the Cacique Comendador, and taught the people to come there every evening, and on their knees to fay the Ave Maria and the Salve. Now the neighbouring Caciques were very angry because this Cacique and his people had deferted the idol they had all been accustomed to worship, and which was called, in the language of that country, their Cemi. Many battles took place about the matter in dispute, but the victory was ever with the christian Cacique. The others faid that neither Comendador, nor his men, gained the battles, but a beautiful woman clad in white, with a wand in her hand. Both parties at last came to an agreement to try the relative merits of the Cemi and of the Virgin Mary in this fashion; namely, that the infidel Caciques fhould take an Indian of the Comendador's party, and should bind him as they pleased, and that the Comendador should take an Indian from their party and bind him as he pleased, and that the two fhould be left alone, by night, in a field: then, if the Cemi was more powerful than the Virgin Mary, he would come and unbind his man, but, if the Virgin Mary was more powerful than the Cemi, fhe would come and unbind her worshipper. Guards were appointed ition to those which he had before. The Ca ues faid that it was fome deceit, and they reed to try the thing again, and fee whether it e true or not. Again the witnesses told the e ftory. The Caciques refolved to watch themes, and, as they too faw the miracle, they faid the Virgin Mary was a good Cacique, and that Comendador might take the Virgin Mary for lord, and that the others might choose which pleased, the Virgin Mary or the Cemi. Afwards there came a clerigo that way and bapmany of them; he also endeavoured to teach m, at the risk of his life, not to put food for Virgin Mary as they were accustomed to do their Cemi. Every christian that came in their , they made fit down, and gave him to eat, and ted upon his faying his Ave Maria, whether liked it or not, for they were very zealous, as verts are apt to be; "and they took me too," d |