n the same unhappy
condition and be useful only to foreigners." In 1780 there were 243
heads of families in the district; the town proper had 9 houses and a
church.

With regard to the remaining settlements mentioned in Governor Bravo
de Rivero's list, there are no reliable data.

From 1759, the year in which a general distribution of Government
lands was practised and titles were granted, to the year 1774, in
which Governor Miguel Muesas reformed or redistributed some of the
urban districts, many, if not most of the settlements referred to were
formed or received the names they bear at present.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 81: The first landing of the American troops was effected
here on July 25, 1898.]

[Footnote 82: These two episodes have given rise to several fantastic
versions by native writers.]

[Footnote 83: Ten by twenty "cuerdas." The cuerda is one-tenth less
than an English acre.]

CHAPTER XL

AURIFEROUS STREAMS AND GOLD PRODUCED FROM

1509 TO 1536

If a systematic exploration were practised to-day, by competent
mineralogists, of the entire chain of mountains which intersects the
island from east to west, it is probable that lodes of gold-bearing
quartz or conglomerate, worth working, would be discovered. Even the
alluvium deposits along the banks of the rivers and their tributaries,
as well as the river beds, might, in many instances, be found to
"pay."

The early settlers compelled the Indians to work for them. These poor
creatures, armed with the simplest tools, dug the earth from the river
banks. Their wives and daughters, standing up to their knees in the
river, washed it in wooden troughs. When the output diminished another
site was chosen, often before the first one was half worked out. The
Indians' practical knowledge of the places where gold was likely to be
found was the Spanish gold-seeker's only guide, the Indians' labor the
only labor employed in the collection of it.

As for the mountains, they have never been properly explored. The
Indians who occupied them remained in a state of insurrection for
years, and when the mountain districts could be safely visited at
last, the _auri sacra fames_ had subsided. The governors did not
interest themselves in the mineral resources of the island, and the
people found it too difficult to provide for their daily wants to go
prospecting. So the surface gold in the alluvium deposits was all that
was collected by the Spaniards, and what ther