mediaeval theologians had never been created in their more generous imaginations. When a soul left the body it had two journeys before it: one to a dismal place, where the cruel and unjust awaited; the other to a fair land, like the best of earth, where all was pleasant and peaceful; for, in spite of the warlike undertakings made necessary by irruptions of the fierce Caribs, these people held to peace as the highest good. Of these Indians hardly a dozen are remembered by their names, but the chief Hatuey was revered among them for his courage and his military skill. He had fled from Hayti to Cuba in a vain hope of escaping his white enemy, and counselled the natives to throw all their gold into the sea, that the Spanish might not linger on their coasts. He might have been the one who ordered gold to be melted and poured down the throats of his prisoners, that for one and the last time they might have enough. The Spaniards caught him and burned him to death at Baracoa. As he stood on the logs in chains, just before the flames were applied, the friars pressed about him and earnestly advised him to become a Christian, that he might not be required to roast in hell, which would be worse than the torture he was about to endure, and which would last forever. If only he would be baptized he could go direct to heaven. "The white man's heaven?" he asked. "Yes." "Are there any Spaniards in that heaven?" "Oh, yes, many." "Then light the fire." Columbus was the more convinced that he had reached Asia because the name of one Cuban province, Mangon, he assumed to be Mangi, a rich district of China. That its people had tails, like monkeys, was nothing against this theory; that footprints of alligators should be the tracks of griffins, which had the bodies of lions and the wings and heads of eagles, was quite in order; but most convincing of all was the discovery by an archer, who had entered a wood in search of game, of thirty men with pale faces, armed with clubs and lances, and habited in white gowns, like friars. The man fled in fear. When his comrades returned with him to find this white company, not a human being appeared to them, and, except for the chatter of birds and the clicking of land-crabs as they scuttled over the stones, the place was still. The coast Indians were understood to say that among the mountains dwelt a chief whom they called a saint, who wore a flowing robe of white and never spoke aloud, ordering his subjects by signs. This was surely Prester John, the shadowy king of a shadowy kingdom, of whom much was said and written a few centuries ago. He was declared by one author to rule a part of India and was reputed to be a Nestorian priest who had made himself king of the Naymans. Other travellers placed him in China, Persia, and Timbuctoo. In a battle with the infidel Tartars Prester John mounted a number of bronze men on horseback, each figure belching clouds of smoke from a fire of punk within, and lashed the horses against the