The Morro, San Juan
PORTO RICO
San Cristobal, where Ogeron’s men labored
Continental in the altitude of its mountains, with the summit of Loma Tina towering to a height of eleven thousand feet, in the vastness of its interior plains, its great valleys, its coastal lands, its rolling savannas, and its huge rivers, Santo Domingo is by far the most beautiful, the richest, and the most imposing of the West Indies. Here was the very cradle of civilization in the New World; here ebbed and flowed the life of New Spain. From Santo Domingo, Cortez, Balboa, and all those other famous conquistadors of old set forth upon their adventures. Here was founded the first European settlement in the New World; here Columbus came to grief and lost one of his ships on that first memorable voyage in 1492; here he was cast in chains into a dungeon; here his son ruled as viceroy, and here the discoverer’s bones still rest in the great cathedral. It was upon Santo Domingo’s shores, too, that the first skirmish between the Indians and the white men occurred. It was on this great island that the first gold was found in the New World; and for centuries millions of treasure poured from [[193]]its mountains and streams, its valleys and hills into the treasury of Spain, until Hispaniola became celebrated as the richest land in all the world.
No other part of America is so closely associated with the making of New Spain, so linked with those brave though cruel old Dons whose names will never die. And in no other spot are there so many or so well-preserved relics of the old days. The very house in which the son of Columbus dwelt still stands above the quay at Santo Domingo City. The massive wall which Drake found such an obstacle still hems the capital about. The first cross erected in the New World is yet preserved within the great cathedral. The stone cistern built by Columbus to supply water is still there. One may wander through the half-ruined arches of the first university in America, where Las Casas taught; and over the doorway of many a stately, ancient house one may still trace the elaborate coats of arms of Spanish hidalgos and grandees who won everlasting fame by hewing an empire with fire and sword from the untamed wilderness of the New World.
No part of the Western Hemisphere has a bloodier, more tragic history. The soil of Santo Domingo has literally been soaked with the blood of countless thousands of helpless Indians, tortured [[194]]and put to death without mercy by the ruthless Spaniards; torn to pieces by bloodhounds; lashed to death in the mines; burned, quartered, flayed alive, massacred wholesale—all in the name of Christianity. And as though these atrocities were not enough, thousands of human beings were slain in battle, and negro uprisings swept the fair land with death in awful forms, and unspeakable cruelties and tortures. As one reads the record of this magnificent island, one feels that it must be a place accursed.
It was here in Hispaniola, too, that the buccaneers had their beginning; here that the Brethren of the Main first came into existence and pledged themselves to that piratical brotherhood; and toward one of their most notorious strongholds Sam shaped the Vigilant’s course, and we entered the great Bay of Samana. [[195]]