outlets for her
exuberant fancy.

Diego Velasquez, the first governor of the island under Spanish rule,
appears to have been an energetic magistrate, and to have ruled affairs
with intelligence. He did not live, however, in a period when justice
erred on the side of mercy, and his harsh and cruel treatment of the
natives will always remain a blot upon his memory. Emigration was
fostered by the home government, and cities were established in the
several divisions of the island; but the new province was mainly
considered in the light of a military station by the Spanish government
in its operations against Mexico. Thus Cuba became the headquarters of
the Spanish power in the west, forming the point of departure for those
military expeditions which, though small in number, were yet so
formidable in the energy of the leaders, and in the arms, discipline,
courage, fanaticism, and avarice of their followers, that they were
fully adequate to carry out the vast scheme of conquest for which they
were designed.

The Spaniards who invaded Mexico encountered a people who had attained a
far higher degree of civilization than their red brethren of the
outlying Caribbean Islands, or those of the northeastern portion of the
continent, now forming the United States. Vast pyramids, imposing
sculptures, curious arms, fanciful garments, various kinds of
manufactures, filled the invaders with surprise. There was much which
was curious and strange in their religion, while the capital of the
Mexican empire presented a fascinating spectacle to the eyes of Cortez
and his followers. The rocky amphitheatre in the midst of which it was
built still remains, but the great lake which was its grandest feature,
traversed by causeways and covered with floating gardens, is gone. The
Aztec dynasty was doomed. In vain did the inhabitants of the conquered
city, roused to madness by the cruelty and extortion of the victors,
expel them from their midst. Cortez refused to flee further than the
shore; the light of his burning vessels rekindled the desperate valor of
his followers, and Mexico fell, as a few years after did Peru beneath
the sword of Pizarro, thus completing the scheme of conquest, and
giving Spain a colonial empire more splendid than that of any power in
Christendom.

In the meantime, under numerous and often-changed captains-general, the
island of Cuba increased in population by free emigration from Spain,
and by the constant cruel importati