affected piety, and in that lofty and solemn
enthusiasm which was a characteristic of his whole life. This must
have been the secret in no small degree of the power he exerted so
successfully over his semi-barbarous followers, who were more affected
by awe than by fear. It was the devout and lofty aspect of their
commander which controlled his sailors under circumstances so trying.
We can conceive of his previous sorrows, but what imagination can form
an adequate conception of his hopefulness and gratitude when the
tokens of the neighborhood of land first greeted his senses? What
rapture must have been his when the keel of his barque first grounded
on the shore of San Salvador, and he planted the royal standard in the
soil, as the Viceroy and High-Admiral of Spain in the New World! No
matter what chanced thereafter, a king's favor or a king's
displeasure, royal largesses or royal chains, that moment of noble
exultation was worth a lifetime of trials.

Columbus first named Cuba "Juana," in honor of Prince John, son of
Ferdinand and Isabella. Subsequently the king named it Fernandina.
This was changed to Santiago, and finally to Ave Maria; but the
aboriginal designation has never been lost, Cuba being its Indian and
only recognized name. The new-comers found the land inhabited by a
most peculiar race, hospitable, inoffensive, timid, fond of the dance
and the rude music of their own people, yet naturally indolent, from
the character of the climate they inhabited. They had some definite
idea of God and heaven, and were governed by patriarchs or kings,
whose word was their only law, and whose age gave them undisputed
precedence. They spoke the dialect of the Lucayos, or Bahamas, from
which islands it is presumed by historians they originated; but it
would seem more reasonable to suppose that both the people of the
Bahamas and of the West India isles came originally from the mainland;
that is, either north or south of the Isthmus of Panama. In numbers
they were vaguely estimated at a million, a calculation the
correctness of which we cannot but doubt. Reliable local authority,
Cubans who have made a study of the early history of the island,
assured the author that the aborigines at the time of Velasquez's
first settlement, say in 1512, could not have exceeded four hundred
thousand. They had but few weapons of offense or defense, and knew not
the use of the bow and arrow. Being a peaceful race and having no wild
animals to co