ver saw, the sweetest thing in the world."

Such was Columbus' opinion of Cuba, just after he first beheld it, and,
after the lapse of four hundred years, the words, making due allowance
for the hyperbole of enthusiasm, still hold good. And this, too, in
spite of all the trials and tribulations which the fair "Pearl of the
Antilles" has been forced to undergo at the hands of her greedy and
inhuman masters.

The eyes of all the world are now upon this indescribably beautiful and
fertile country. Like Andromeda, she has been shuddering and gasping in
the power of a monster, but at last a Perseus has come to her rescue.
Somewhat tardily perhaps the United States, united now in every meaning
of the word, has from pure philanthropy embraced her cause--the United
States whose watchword, with a sturdy hatred of the oppressor, has ever
been and always will be "freedom." The star of hope, symbolized by the
lone star upon the Cuban flag, and so long concealed by gloomy,
threatening clouds, is now shining clear and bright; and all
civilization is waiting with happy confidence for the day, God willing
not far distant, when "Cuba Libre" shall be not only an article of
creed, but an established fact.

The island of Cuba, the largest and richest of the West Indian Islands,
and up to the present the most important of Spain's colonial
possessions, not so vast as they once were but still of no
inconsiderable value, was discovered by Columbus during his first voyage
to the far west.

For many centuries, even back to the time of Solomon, the chief object
of explorers had been a discovery of a passage to India and the fabulous
wealth of the East. In the thirteenth century, Marco Polo, the famous
Venetian explorer, went far beyond any of his predecessors and succeeded
in reaching Pekin. He also heard of another empire which was called
Zipangri, the same that we now know as Japan. When he returned and
published what we are sorry to say was none too veracious an account,
Polo being only too ready to draw upon his imagination, other nations
were fired by emulation.

The Portuguese were the first to achieve any positive result. Early in
the fifteenth century, inspired by an able and enterprising sovereign,
they doubled Cape Non, discovered Madeira, occupied the Azores and
reached the Senegal and the Cape Verde Islands. In 1486, Bartholomew
Diaz sighted the Cape of Good Hope, which some ten years later Vasco da
Gama, the most famous of all