"They had no images or altars, no temples, but they believed in a future existence and in a god living above the blue-domed sky," replied the Captain. "But they knew nothing of Jesus and the way of salvation, and it seems the Spaniards did not tell them of Him or give them the Bible."
"No," said Grandma Elsie, "Rome did not allow them the Bible for themselves."
"Are there a good many wild flowers in Cuba, papa?" asked Elsie.
"Yes; a great many, and of every color and tint imaginable—flowers growing wild in the woods. The foliage of the trees is scarcely less beautiful, and their tops are alive with birds of gayly-colored plumage. I have been speaking of wild, uncultivated land. The scene is even more inviting where man has been at work transforming the wildwood into cultivated fields; he has fenced them off with stone walls, which have warm russet-brown tints and are covered here and there with vines and creepers bearing bright flowers. The walks and avenues are bordered with orange-trees in blossom and fruit at the same time, both looking lovely in their setting of deep green leaves. But you have seen such in Louisiana."
"Yes, papa, and they are beautiful," said Elsie. "There must be a great deal worth seeing in Cuba, but I'll not care to land on it if you older people don't want to."
"Well, we will leave that question to be decided in the future," the Captain said, smiling down into the bright little face.
"I think I have read," said Evelyn, "that Columbus at first thought Cuba not an island but a part of the mainland?"
"Yes," replied the Captain, "but the natives assured him that it was an island; on his second trip, however, in 1494, he reiterated his previous belief and called the land Juana, after Juan, the son of Ferdinand and Isabella. Afterward he changed it to Fernandina, in honor of Ferdinand; still later to Santiago, the name of the patron saint of Spain, after that to Ave Maria. But the name Cuba clung to the island and was never lost.
"The Indians there were a peaceable race. They called themselves Ciboneyes. They had nine independent caciques, and, as I believe I have already told you, they believed in a supreme being and the immortality of the soul."
"Really, they seem to me to have been more Christian than the Spaniards who came and robbed them of their lands and their liberty," said Evelyn.