Tacon was highly pleased with this proposition. He would save the large sum which he had promised Marti, and the city would gain a fine fish-market without expense. So, after weighing fully all the _pros_ and _cons_, Tacon assented to the proposition, granting Marti in full legal form the sole right to fish near the city and to sell fish in its markets. Marti knew far better than Tacon the value to him of this concession. During his life as a rover he had become familiar with the best fishing-grounds, and for years furnished the city bountifully with fish, reaping a very large profit upon his enterprise. At the close of the period of his monopoly the market and privileges reverted to the government. Marti had all he needed, and was now a man of large wealth. How he should invest it was the question that next concerned him. He finally decided to try and obtain the monopoly of theatrical performances in Havana on condition of building there one of the largest and finest theatres in the world. This was done, paying the speculator a large interest on his wealth, and he died at length rich and honored, his money serving as a gravestone for his sins. KEARNEY’S DARING EXPEDITION AND THE CONQUEST OF NEW MEXICO. We have told the story of the remarkable expedition of Vasquez de Coronado from Mexico northward to the prairies of Kansas. We have now to tell the story of an expedition which took place three centuries later from this prairie land to the once famous region of the "Seven Cities of Cibola." In 1542, when Coronado traversed this region, he found it inhabited by tribes of wandering savages, living in rude wigwams. In 1846, when the return expedition set out, it came from a land of fruitful farms and populous cities. Yet it was to pass through a country as wild and uncultivated as that which the Spaniards had traversed three centuries before. The invasion of Mexico by the United States armies in 1846 was made in several divisions, one being known as the Army of the West, led by Colonel Stephen W. Kearney. He was to march to Santa Fé, seize New Mexico, and then push on and occupy California, both of which were then provinces of Mexico. It was an expedition in which the soldiers would have to fight far more with nature than with man, and force their way through desolate regions and over deserts rarely trodden by the human foot.