to give. Indians, however, were now a fort of money. The courtiers asked for repartimientos of Indians-fome purpofing to go themselves to Hifpaniola and push their fortunes there, and others intending merely to farm their Indians out, as abfentee proprietors. Ferdinand did not refift these applications; and though the Governor Ovando, probably aware of the mischief, and alive to the inconvenience, remonftrated as much as he dared, especially against absentee proprietors, there were many cafes in which he must have been obliged to give way. The mania for goldfinding was now probably at its height;* and Courtiers the facrifice of Indian life proportionately great. obtain re- At the fame time that the King is chargeable with furthering this great mischief of giving repartimientos, it is to be observed that he was not inattentive to thofe things which were, or were supposed to be, the true interests of the colony. He promoted discovery; he encouraged the growth of the fugar cane; he urged the building of churches (not too coftly); he allowed all his subjects to trade to the Indies; (hitherto it had only been the Sevillians); he looked after the pearl partimien tos. 470,000 pefos of gold were found annually.—Herrera, Hift. de las Indias, dec. 1, lib. 6, cap. 18. fisheries; he took Amerigo Vespucci into his service; and in short, like a prudent man, fought to make the most of his eftate, furthering humane things when they came in his way. As regards these repartimientos, he did not look upon them as final and irrevocable, but only as fubfifting during his pleasure.* As the Indians in Hifpaniola were now beginning to grow scarce, the next thing we may expect to find is, that importations will be made from other islands to fill up the vacuum produced by the working at the mines, and by other causes. The first large importation of this kind furnishes us with one of the most affecting narratives in hiftory. Ferdinand was told that the Lucayan islands were full of Indians; and that it would be a very good thing to bring them to Hifpaniola" that they might enjoy the preaching Hifpa"and political customs" which the Indians in Lucayans brought to niola. Noviembre 12. * Valladolid 12 de Noviembre de 1 509-Declaracion del poder 1509. del Almirante para el repartimiento de Yndios. Don Ferdinando &c.-A vos el Almirante fabeis que os dirigi la cedula figuiente (La va fupra, folio 51-52) E por cuanto en ella no fue feñalado el tiempo que fe havian de tener los Yndios repartidos: mando por esta sobre carta que los tengan cuanto nueftra merced e voluntad fuere e no mas-Cumplase lo dispuesto en la cedula que va incorporada.-MSS. Coleccion de Muñoz, tomo 90. Hifpaniola enjoyed. Befides, they might affift " in getting gold, and the King be much ferved." The King gave a licence. The first Spaniards who went to entrap these poor Lucayans did it in a way that brings to mind our English proverb"seething a kid in its mother's milk"-for they told these fimple people that they had come from the heaven of their ancestors, where these ancestors and all whom the Indians had loved in life were now drinking in the delights of heavenly ease: and these good Spaniards would take the Lucayans in their fhips to join their much-loved ancestors, and dearer ones than ancestors who had gone thither.* We may fancy how the more fimple amongst them, lone women and those who felt this life to be somewhat dreary, crowded round the ships which were to take them to the regions of the bleft. I picture to myself fome fad Indian, not without his doubts of these Spanish inducements, * Dixeron que yuã de la isla Española ádonde las animas de fus padres, y parientes, y de los que bien querian estauan en holgura, y que fi querian yr a verlos, los llevarian en aquellos nauios, porque es cofa cierta, que las naciones de todas las Indias creyeron la inmortalidad del alma y que fe yuan, muertos los cuerpos, a ciertos lugares deleytofos, adonde ninguna cofa de plazer, y de confuelo les faltava y en algunas partes crehian, que primero padecian algunas penas por los pecados que en efta vida avian hecho.Herrera, Hift. de las Indias, dec. 1, lib. 7, cap. 3. but willing to take the chance of regaining the loved past, and saying like King Arthur to his friend Sir Bedivere upon the shore, "(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) Alfred Tennyfon. Morte d'Arthur, vol. 2, p. 15. This hideous pretence of the Spaniards did its work; but there were other devices, not mentioned to us, which were afterwards adopted; and the end was, that in five years forty thoufand of these deluded Lucayans were carried to Hifpaniola. Moft men in the course of their lives have rude awakenments which may enable them to form fome notion of what it was, to come down from the hope of immediate paradife to working as a flave in a mine. Some lived on in patient despair; others of fiercer nature, refufing fuftenance, and flying to dark caves and unfrequented places, poured forth their lives, and we may hope were now, indeed, with the bleft. Others of more force and practical energy, "peradventure the wifeft" as Peter Martyr fays, A defpe rate voy age home wards. made escape to the northerly parts of Hispaniola, and there with "arms outstretched" towards their Country, lived at leaft, to drink in the breezes from their native lands. Those lands were now paradife to them. There is a tree in Hifpaniola called the Yaurumá; a large, light, pithy tree. A Lucayan more enterprifing than the reft, who had been a carpenter in his own ifland, cut down one of these Yaurumá trees, hollowed it out, provifioned the hollow part with maize and fome calabashes of water; then put the ftems of fmaller trees across the main trunk; then lashed those stems together with "bexucos," which are ftringy roots like cords; and filling in well with leaves the interftices between the stems, thus made fomething of a raft.* He took on board with him another Indian man and a woman, both relations, and having provided themselves with oars, away they paddled, having the North Star for their guide. There is always life in a ftout-hearted action though long paft; and one feels quite anxious now, as if they ftill were on that fea, to know what became of them. On they went, day after day, night after night; the loathed Hifpaniola had long been out *Herrera, Hift. de las Indias, dec. 1. lib. 7, cap. 3. |