[36] Gomara, Crónica, cap. 32, ap. Barcia, tom. ii.--Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 5, cap. 1.--Oviedo, Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 1.--“Mui hermosas vegas y riberas tales y tan hermosas que en toda España no pueden ser mejores ansí de apaçibles á la vista como de fructíferas.” (Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.) The following poetical apostrophe, by Lord Morpeth, to the scenery of Cuba, equally applicable to that of the _tierra caliente_, will give the reader a more animated picture of the glories of these sunny climes than my own prose can. The verses, which have never been published, breathe the generous sentiment characteristic of their noble author: “Ye tropic forests of unfading green, Where the palm tapers and the orange glows, Where the light bamboo waves her feathery screen, And her far shade the matchless _ceiba_ throws! “Ye cloudless ethers of unchanging blue, Save where the rosy streaks of eve give way To the clear sapphire of your midnight hue, The burnished azure of your perfect day! “Yet tell me not my native skies are bleak, That flushed with liquid wealth no cane-fields wave; For Virtue pines, and Manhood dares not speak, And Nature’s glories brighten round the Slave.” [37] “The same love of flowers,” observes one of the most delightful of modern travellers, “distinguishes the natives now, as in the times of Cortés. And it presents a strange anomaly,” she adds, with her usual acuteness; “this love of flowers having existed along with their sanguinary worship and barbarous sacrifices.” Madame Calderon de la Barca, Life in Mexico, vol. i. let. 12. [38] “Con la imaginacion que llevaban, i buenos deseos, todo se les antojaba plata i oro lo que relucia.” Gomara, Crónica, cap. 32, ap. Barcia, tom. ii. [39] This is Las Casas’ estimate (Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 3, cap. 121.) Torquemada hesitates between twenty, fifty, and one hundred and fifty thousand, each of which he names at different times! (Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. iii. p. 26, nota.) The place was gradually abandoned, after the Conquest, for others, in a more favorable position, probably, for trade. Its ruins were visible at the close of the last century. See Lorenzana, Hist. de Nueva-España, p. 39, nota. [40] “Porque viven mas política y rasonablemente que ninguna de las gentes que hasta oy en estas partes se ha visto.” Carta de Vera Cruz, MS. [41] Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 121.--Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 33, ap. Barcia, tom. ii.--Oviedo, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 33, cap. 1. [42] The courteous title of _doña_ is usually given by the Spanish chroniclers to this accomplished Indian. [43] “He had come only to redress injuries, to protect the captive, to succor the weak, and to overthrow tyranny.” (Gomara, Crónica, cap. 33, ap. Barcia, tom. ii.) Are we reading the adventures--it is the language--of Don Quixote or Amadis de Gaula?