Spanish
lasciviousness than can be clearly expressed. This debasing trait,
together with the greed for gold exhibited by the new-comers,
disabused the minds of the natives as to the celestial origin of their
visitors, a belief which they at first entertained, and which the
Spaniards for mercenary purposes strove to impress upon them. The
labor of this people was limited to the light work necessary to
provide for the prime wants of life, beyond which they knew nothing,
while the bounteous climate of the tropics spared the necessity of
clothing. They preferred hunting and fishing to agriculture; beans and
maize, with the fruits that nature gave them in abundance, rendered
their diet at once simple, nutritious, and entirely adequate to all
their wants. They possessed no quadrupeds of any description, except a
race of voiceless dogs, as they were designated by the early
writers,--why we know not, since they bear no resemblance to the
canine species, but are not very unlike a large rat. This animal is
trapped and eaten by the people on the island to this day, having much
of the flavor and nature of the rabbit.

The native Cubans were of tawny complexion and beardless, resembling
in many respects the aborigines of North America, and as Columbus
described them in his first communication to his royal patrons, were
"loving, tractable, and peaceable; though entirely naked, their
manners were decorous and praiseworthy." The wonderful fecundity of
the soil, its range of noble mountains, its widespread and
well-watered plains, with its extended coast line and excellent
harbors, all challenged the admiration of the discoverers, so that
Columbus recorded in his journal these words: "It is the most
beautiful island that eyes ever beheld,--full of excellent ports and
profound rivers." And again he says; "It excels all other countries,
as far as the day surpasses the night in brightness and splendor." The
spot where the Spaniards first landed is supposed to be on the east
coast, just west of Nuevitas. "As he approached the island," says
Irving, "he was struck with its magnitude and the grandeur of its
features: its airy mountains, which reminded him of Sicily; its
fertile valleys and long sweeping plains, watered by noble rivers; its
stately forests; its bold promontories and stretching headlands, which
melted away into remotest distance."

Excursions inland corroborated the favorable impression made by the
country bordering upon the