undering hands
of Spain's enemies. Again and again the city was called upon to defend
the challenge which her riches and massive walls perpetually issued.
Again and again she was forced to yield to the heavy tributes and
disgraceful penalties of buccaneers and legalized pirates who, like
Drake, came to plunder her under royal patent. Cartagena rose and
fell, and rose again. But the human heart which throbs beneath the
lash of lust or revenge knows no barriers. Her great forts availed
nothing against the lawless hordes which swarmed over them. Neither
were her tremendous walls proof against starvation. Again and again,
her streets filled with her gaunt dead, she stubbornly held her gates
against the enemies of Spain who assaulted her in the name of
religion, only at last to weaken with terror and throw them open in
disgraceful welcome to the French de Pontis and his maudlin, rag-tag
followers, who drained her of her last drop of life blood. As her
gates swung wide and this nondescript band of marauders streamed in
with curses and shouts of exultation, the glory of this royal
mediaeval city passed out forever.

Almost from its inception, Cartagena had been the point of attack of
every enterprise launched with the object of wresting from Spain her
rich western possessions, so much coveted by her jealous and
revengeful rivals. It was Spain herself who fought for very existence
while Cartagena was holding her gates against the enemies of Holy
Church. And these enemies knew that they had pierced the Spanish heart
when the "Queen of the Indies" fell. And in no small measure did Spain
deserve the fate which overtook her. For, had it not been for the
stupendous amount of treasure derived from these new possessions, the
dramatic and dominant part which she played in the affairs of Europe
during the sixteenth century would have been impossible. This treasure
she wrested from her South American colonies at a cost in the
destruction of human life, in the outraging of human instincts, in
the debauching of ideals and the falsifying of hope, in hellish
oppression and ghastly torture, that can never be adequately
estimated. Her benevolent instruments of colonization were cannon and
saintly relics. Her agents were swaggering soldiers and bigoted
friars. Her system involved the impression of her language and her
undemonstrable religious beliefs upon the harmless aborigines. The
fruits of this system, which still linger after three centur