And bitterly the Spaniards regretted the loss. Pedro de Bayoha, “Governor of the City of Cuba,” wrote to the King setting forth its many advantages, “any fleet however large can lie and careen its ships, and any army can march, as food is very plentiful and the island abounding in tame and wild cattle as well as swine, the quantity of which is so great that every year twenty thousand head are killed for the lard and fat and no use is made of the meat.” So we gather that Ysassi was not very good at the commissariat. Perhaps the English harried him too much. It has been said with some surprise that there are few relics of the Spaniards in the island. For me, I marvel that there is after all these years still so much. The oranges and the limes, the pomegranates and the coconut palms are a monument to them, and still at Montego Bay is to be seen the outlines of a dark stone fort that overlooked the beautiful bay and guarded the town. And though Indian corn has been sown in the courtyards for many a long day, some of the old cannon that belonged to his Spanish Majesty still lie about. The climate of Jamaica is against the preservation of relics of the past. “Tis a very strange thing,” says Hans Sloane, accustomed to the slow growth of Northern climes, “to see in how short a time a plantation formerly clear of trees and shrubs will grow foul, which comes from two causes; the one not stubbing up the roots, whence arise young sprouts, and the other the fertility of the soil. The settlements and plantations of not only the Indians but even the Spaniards being quite overgrown with tall trees, so that there is no footsteps of such a thing left were it not for the old palisadoes, buildings, orange walks, etc., which show plainly the formerly cleared places where plantations have been.” And Sloane, who was physician to the Duke of Albemarle, the Governor, writes of 1688, not thirty years after the last Spanish Governor had fled. Even now in Jamaica there are tales of buried treasure. In 1916 the “Busha” or superintendent of an estate in Westmoreland was engaged in pulling down a stout stone wall, evidently built in the old days by slave labour. Each stone was well and truly laid, and tradition said the wall was Spanish. One of the workmen said he had come to a hollow place. And sure enough there was a large jar stuffed full of old Spanish gold and silver coins, hidden I suppose when the Spanish owner of the _hato_ fled before the incoming of the English. Tradition says there are many more, but within the last year or two the Crown, I hear, has insisted on its right of treasure trove, so that it is exceedingly unlikely anyone finding such will proclaim the fact aloud. The Spanish colonists it is true were but a poor people, but even the poorest have need of some little money, and in the days when banks were not much in vogue, cash that would not go into the breeches pocket had to be kept somewhere.