ing sun.
Theirs were the first vessels manned by white men that had ever plowed
the trackless Pacific; and this was the first land ever seen by white
men within that unknown ocean.

It was a pitiable crew on those three small, weather-beaten ships, who
drew, that March morning, toward the coast of the present island of
Guam, which is now a possession of the United States. Hunger and thirst
had driven them to the verge of madness. They had eaten even the leather
thongs from their sail fastenings, and only a small mug of water per day
was the portion of drink for a man. "Land! Land!!" It was a glad cry
from the watch aloft. There were palm trees, cocoanuts, green grass,
tropical fruits, an abundance of fresh water, and--though naked--a
curious and friendly people. No wonder Magellan paused to rest himself
and his sailors.

Those little islands have never been of much value, and never can be.
Seventeen of them stretching in a row about six hundred miles from north
to south, and their total area, including their islets and reefs, is
variously estimated at from 400 to 560 square miles. Hence, there is but
about one-fourth more territory on the whole seventeen islands combined
than is included within the corporate limits of the city of Greater New
York.

A broad channel divides the Ladrones into two groups. The northern group
consists of ten islets, without inhabitants; the southern group has
seven islands, four of which are inhabited. The largest island,
_Guahan_, known to us as _Guam_, ceded to us by Spain, was taken by our
warship Charleston on July 4, 1898. This island contains the only town
in the colony. Its full Spanish name is _San Ignacio de Agana_. It is
the capital of the archipelago, and contains more than half of the whole
population.

THE NATIVE INHABITANTS.

When first visited by Europeans, the archipelago contained from 40,000
to 60,000 souls, represented by two distinct classes, the nobles and the
people, between whom marriage, and even contact, were forbidden. But the
Spanish conquest soon ended this distinction by reducing all alike to
servitude. For a long time after Spanish occupation, the natives
complained and finally rebelled against the oppressive measures of their
rulers; but by the end of the seventeenth century they ceased their
resistance, and it was found by a census that fully half of them had
perished or escaped in their canoes to the Caroline Islands, and that
two-thirds of their one