Whenever we hear of a famous man,--whether he be artist, author, statesman, soldier, scientist, great traveler, or missionary,--we like to know what sort of a boy he was. We are curious about his home, his school, his parents, his friends, and all the various influences that helped to make him the man he was. Such knowledge gives us a better understanding of his after life, and a fuller sympathy with his aims and achievements. Although I have headed this chapter "Bartolome the Youth," we know comparatively little of Las Casas until he was about twenty-eight years old. In later life we find him impetuous, loving, tireless in energy, with a fiery temper that blazed out in quick wrath against all injustice and cruelty toward the weak and helpless, possessing a brilliant mind and great talents, never giving up striving against the wrong, and never knowing when he was beaten. These qualities he must have possessed in some measure as a boy, but, unfortunately, no historian has opened up for us those early pages. Bartolome was born in the city of Seville, Spain, in the year 1474. We are not told the day of the month. Of his mother we know nothing, but his father was Pedro de Casaus. He was of French descent, but the family had lived in Spain for over two hundred years, and because of valuable aid given to one of the Spanish kings in the wars against the Moors, they had been ennobled, and after a time the name lost its French spelling and took the Spanish form, Las Casas. Bartolome certainly lived in very interesting times. When he was between eighteen and nineteen years of age Columbus came to Seville on his return from his first voyage, which resulted in the discovery of the West India Islands. He brought with him many strange and wonderful things,--birds of brilliant color, such as had never been seen before, gold and pearls, and, most wonderful of all, six Indians. We can imagine the crowds of people who must have followed that little procession as it passed through the streets of the city, pushing and crowding one another to get a sight of the great Admiral and the men who had sailed with him over unknown waters, and especially of the painted red men, who were, I am sure, quite as curious on their part, and probably badly frightened besides.