xchanged
for it the old religion of his country, which could sustain
him in an action of such melancholy grandeur. But
the Indians did not always reply to their oppressors
with escaping passively beyond their hands. Here is a
story with matter in it for as rich a tragedy as OEdipus
or Agamemnon; and in its stern and tremendous
features, more nearly resembling them than any which
were conceived even by Shakespeare.

An officer named Orlando had taken the daughter
of a Cuban cacique to be his mistress. She was with
child by him, but, suspecting her of being engaged in
some other intrigue, he had her fastened to two wooden
spits, not intending to kill her, but to terrify her; and
setting her before the fire, he ordered that she should
be turned by the servants of the kitchen.

"The maiden, stricken with fear through the cruelty
thereof, and strange kind of torment, presently gave up the
ghost. The cacique her father, understanding the matter,
took thirty of his men and went to the house of the captain,
who was then absent, and slew his wife, whom he had
married after that wicked act committed, and the women
who were companions of the wife, and her servants every
one. Then shutting the door of the house, and putting fire
under it, he burnt himself and all his companions that
assisted him, together with the captain's dead family and
goods."

This is no fiction or poet's romance. It is a tale
of wrath and revenge, which in sober dreadful truth
enacted itself upon this earth, and remains among the
eternal records of the doings of mankind upon it. As
some relief to its most terrible features, we follow it with
a story which has a touch in it of diabolical humour.

The slave-owners finding their slaves escaping thus
unprosperously out of their grasp, set themselves to
find a remedy for so desperate a disease, and were
swift to avail themselves of any weakness, mental or
bodily, through which to retain them in life. One of
these proprietors being informed that a number of his
people intended to kill themselves on a certain day,
at a particular spot, and knowing by experience that
they were too likely to do it, presented himself there
at the time which had been fixed upon, and telling
the Indians when they arrived, that he knew their
intention, and that it was vain for them to attempt to
keep anything a secret from him, he ended with saying,
that he had come there to kill himself with them; that
as he had used them