Of the seven cities which Velasquez had founded--they were called cities, and we must through courtesy retain the name--Santiago was still the largest, and was the capital. It probably contained at the period of which we are writing fewer than five hundred Spaniards and other Europeans. De Avila saw only two hundred assembled to welcome him on his arrival as Governor. The number of houses and other buildings was less than a hundred. The first town hall and church which were built there were structures of logs and thatch, which were burned by a fire which destroyed most of the place in 1528. Four years later the Franciscan monastery and other buildings shared a like fate. The Spanish government then urged the erection of buildings of stone with tiled roofs, and a few such were erected. At the end of Guzman's second administration there were perhaps a dozen such, of which Guzman himself owned two. The harbor boasted a single wharf or pier, of logs and earth, near which for protection two small cannon were placed behind an earthwork. Such was the Cuban capital in 1550. Three years later, in 1553, a French privateer entered the harbor, silenced the two cannon, and landed a company of four hundred men, who outnumbered the entire population of the place. These freebooters took possession of Santiago and lived there at their ease, at the expense of the people, during the whole month of July. Then, having exacted from the inhabitants a ransom of what would be about $80,000 in modern currency, they departed, leaving the place uninjured save for the depletion of its people's purses. Following this visitation there was a numerous exodus of the inhabitants, to Bayamo and other places; some leaving the island altogether. Havana was at this time the second city of the island, and was steadily rising toward first place. It had been the last of the seven cities to be founded by Velasquez, and was now occupying its third and final site. It was first planted in July, 1515, near the mouth of the Guines or Mayabeque River, on the south shore of Cuba; that shore then being the favorite part of the island for the sake of trade with Jamaica and the South American continent. But the location was unhealthful, the swarms of mosquitoes particularly being intolerable, and two years later the city was transferred almost directly across the island to the north shore. This second site was near the mouth of the Almendares River, near the present town of Vedado, and was found to be vastly preferable to the former one. It was impossible, however, that the superb harbor on which the city now fronts should be neglected. It had been discovered in 1508 by Sebastian de Ocampo, while circumnavigating the island, and had been called Carenas. Accordingly in 1519 the young city of Havana, bearing the Indian name of that province of the island, was transported thither.