k some copper
mines not far from the town; but without success, either because
the veins failed, or the laborers were too ignorant or the expense
was greater than the profit."

Many of the writers of these books of travel dwell at length upon the
wealth of precious woods found on the island. One of them makes a list
which contains the following: l'acana, called vegetable iron, cedar,
majagna (mahogany) frijolillo, a wood with shaded veins, granadillo, a
wood light purple in color, ebony, yew and many others. Wood was so
plentiful that it was even used instead of metal in machinery.
Foreigners visiting the first sugar refinery in Cuba, which was in 1532
founded by Brigadier Gonzales de Velosa, associated with the veedor
Cristobal de Tapia and his brother, found the machines made of hard
wood. The variety of fruits is also commented upon by the travelers that
visited Cuba in the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth
century. They mention among the fruit trees abundant in Cuba the cocoa
trees of Los Remedios, the ubiquitous banana, the orange, the West India
chestnut, the fruit-bearing palms, guesima, garoubier, yaya and others.

Francois Coreal's "Relation des Voyages aux Indes Occidentales" also
contains some interesting data and goes into the causes of the decline
of Spanish power in the West Indies. Coreal, who seems to be of Spanish
origin or at least citizenship, says among other things:

"There grows in Porto Rico a guiac tree, the wood of which was
considered a sovereign remedy against small-pox. Indians sometimes told
me, were it but for that wood, one should be glad that America was
discovered. These Indians often asked me whether there are any drugs
against small pox growing in Europe; and when I told them that many
excellent antivenereal remedies came from the West Indies, they remarked
with some common sense and not without a touch of irony, that God had
much kindness for the Castellanos, having given them their gold, their
wives and even their guiac."

In another part of the very readable work he says:

"It is certain the Spaniards owe the rapidity of their conquest of
America to the sudden (and almost miraculous) fear with which the
Indians were seized at the approach of the new enemy. It seems that
without it we would have had much more trouble; but artillery was
unknown to these Americans, so was military discipline, which we
understood better than they, so they with extraordin