The fairy-like opening of the dramatic history of Cuba, with all the quaint descriptions of its Eden-like beauty bequeathed to us in its Discoverer's Journal, was soon to degenerate into a horrible tragedy. Not a generation elapsed before the Spaniards were deep in the very tactics which have been disgracing their behaviour in Cuba during this last decade. In the most wanton, senseless, and barbarous fashion, they fell on the wretched natives, with no other object than that of extirpating them, so as to usurp their possessions. They even went so far as to assure the poor wretches that if they would embark with them on their ships they would take them to certain islands where their ancestors resided, and where they would enjoy a state of bliss of which they had no conception. The simple souls listened with wondrous credulity, and, eager to visit their friends in the happy region described, followed the Spaniards with the utmost docility. By these damnable devices over 40,000 human beings were decoyed from their homes and ruthlessly slaughtered. Las Casas and Peter Martyr relate tales by the dozen concerning the frightful cruelty of the men whom they had the misfortune to accompany to the New World. Martyr tells us that some Spaniards made a vow to hang or burn thirteen natives in honour of the Saviour and the Twelve Apostles every morning. Certain monsters, more zealous than the rest, drove their captives into the water, and after forcibly administering the rite of baptism, cut their throats to prevent their apostacy. But I will not harrow the reader with further accounts of the astounding cruelty shown by the Spanish conquerors of Cuba. I will simply repeat with their own historian, Martyr, "that in the whole history of the world such enormities have never before been practised." If any further testimony were needed, we have that of the venerable Las Casas. Even Oviado, who strives to palliate his countrymen's barbarities, confesses that in 1535, only forty-three years after the discovery of the West Indies, and when he himself was on the spot, there were not above 500 of the original natives left alive in the island of Hispaniola.[8]