their red brethren of
the outlying Caribbean Islands, or those of the northeastern portion
of the continent. Vast pyramids, imposing sculptures, curious arms,
fanciful garments, various kinds of manufactures, the relics of which
strongly interest the student of the past, filled the invaders with
surprise. There was much that was curious and startling in their
mythology, and the capital of the Mexican empire presented a strange
and fascinating spectacle to the eyes of Cortez. The rocky
amphitheatre in the midst of which it was built still remains
unchanged, but the great lake which surrounded it, traversed by
causeways and covered with floating gardens laden with flowers, is
gone.

The star of the Aztec dynasty set in blood. 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 farther than the shore; the light of his burning
galleys rekindled the desperate valor of his followers, and Mexico
fell, as a few years after did Peru under the perfidy and sword of
Pizarro, thus completing the scheme of conquest, and giving Spain a
colonial empire far more splendid than that of any other power in
Christendom.

Of the agents in this vast scheme of territorial aggrandizement, we
see Cortez dying in obscurity and Pizarro assassinated in his palace,
while retributive justice has overtaken the monarchy at whose behest
the richest portions of the Western Continent were violently wrested
from their native possessors.

CHAPTER V.

Baracoa, the First Capital. -- West Indian Buccaneers. --
Military Despotism. -- A Perpetual State of Siege. -- A
Patriotic Son of Cuba. -- Political Condition of the Island.
-- Education of Cuban Youths. -- Attempts at Revolution. --
Fate of General Narciso Lopez. -- The Late Civil War and its
Leader. -- Terrible Slaughter of Spanish Troops. --
Stronghold of the Insurgents. -- Guerrillas. -- Want of
Self-Reliance. -- Spanish Art, Literature, and Conquest. --
What Spain was. -- What Spain is. -- Rise and Fall of an
Empire.

Baracoa lies one hundred miles northeast from Santiago, and was the
capital of the island as first established by Velasquez. Here Leo X.
erected in 1518 the first cathedral in Cuba. The town is situated on
the north coast, near the eastern extremity of the island, having a
small but deep harbor