e city bountifully with fish,
reaping a very large profit upon his enterprise. At the close of the
period of his monopoly the market and privileges reverted to the
government.

Marti had all he needed, and was now a man of large wealth. How he should
invest it was the question that next concerned him. He finally decided to
try and obtain the monopoly of theatrical performances in Havana on
condition of building there one of the largest and finest theatres in the
world. This was done, paying the speculator a large interest on his
wealth, and he died at length rich and honored, his money serving as a
gravestone for his sins.

KEARNEY'S DARING EXPEDITION AND THE CONQUEST OF NEW MEXICO.

We have told the story of the remarkable expedition of Vasquez de Coronado
from Mexico northward to the prairies of Kansas. We have now to tell the
story of an expedition which took place three centuries later from this
prairie land to the once famous region of the "Seven Cities of Cibola." In
1542, when Coronado traversed this region, he found it inhabited by tribes
of wandering savages, living in rude wigwams. In 1846, when the return
expedition set out, it came from a land of fruitful farms and populous
cities. Yet it was to pass through a country as wild and uncultivated as
that which the Spaniards had traversed three centuries before.

The invasion of Mexico by the United States armies in 1846 was made in
several divisions, one being known as the Army of the West, led by Colonel
Stephen W. Kearney. He was to march to Santa Fe, seize New Mexico, and
then push on and occupy California, both of which were then provinces of
Mexico. It was an expedition in which the soldiers would have to fight far
more with nature than with man, and force their way through desolate
regions and over deserts rarely trodden by the human foot.

The invading army made its rendezvous at Fort Leavenworth, on the Missouri
River, in the month of June, 1846. It consisted of something over sixteen
hundred men, all from Missouri, and all mounted except one battalion of
infantry. Accompanying it were sixteen pieces of artillery. A march of two
thousand miles in length lay before this small corps, much of it through
the land of the enemy, where much larger forces were likely to be met.
Before the adventurers, after the green prairies had been passed, lay hot
and treeless plains and mountain-ranges in whose passes the wintry snow
still lingered, while savag