For a considerable time after the last visit of Columbus, Cuba was strangely neglected by the enterprising explorers and conquistadors of Spain. Hispaniola, since known as Hayti or Santo Domingo, became the chief colony and centre of Spanish authority in the Antilles, and it for many years far outranked Cuba in interest and importance. It does not appear that for more than a dozen years after the last visit of Columbus any attempt whatever was made to colonize or to explore the great island, if indeed it was so much as voluntarily visited. Navigators doubtless frequently passed near its shores, on their way to and from Darien and the Venezuelan coast, and occasionally stress of weather on the "stormy Caribbean" or actual shipwreck compelled some to land upon it. Such involuntary landings were presumably made either in the neighborhood of the Zapata Peninsula or, still more probably, not exactly upon Cuba at all but upon the southern shore of the tributary Isle of Pines. In consequence, the voyagers carried back to Hispaniola or to Spain the not unnatural report that Cuba consisted of nothing but swamps; a report which of course did not inspire others with zeal to visit so unfavorable a place. For a similar space of time, too, the delusion that Cuba was a part of the continent generally prevailed. It is true that on a map of Juan de la Cosa's, to which the date of 1500 is attributed, Cuba is indicated to be an island. But the date is not certain, by any means; and it is notorious that more than one early cartographer drew upon imagination as well as upon ascertained geographical facts. Somewhat more significant is the fact that Peter Martyr spoke of Cuba as an island, and said that some sailors pretended to have circumnavigated it. There is no proof, however, that this was more than rumor. What seems certain is that as late as 1508 the best authorities were ignorant whether Cuba was island or mainland, and that not until that time was the question settled.