p his home in San Geronimo after the
occupation, was disturbed for three successive nights by the ghost,
and on learning the tradition of the place he investigated the palace
and brought to light the torture chamber with its rows of hooks and
rings and chains about the walls. The piercing of its roof, so that
the sun came in and the ghosts and malaria went out, the removal of
the grim relics of mediaevalism, the cleaning and whitewashing of the
apartments, have probably induced the spectre to take up his quarters
elsewhere, for his old haunts are hardly recognizable, and he can have
no grudge against the soldiers of a republic who carried out his plans
with a perfection and promptness of which he could not have dreamed.

The climate of the West Indies has ever been favorable to the
preservation of spirits, and this haunted castle of San Juan has
counterparts in the island, and in other islands, and the ghosts are
not always victims of the Spaniards, either. The appearance of spectres
in the New World was almost contemporary with Columbus. Indeed,
one of the most startling of supernatural appearances occurred in
the town he founded,--the town of Isabella, Hayti, the first white
man's city in America. It was created by the great navigator on his
second voyage, but it remained for only a few years on the map. The
dons whom he brought with him refused to work, even when the colony
was starving, and reported him in Spain as a tyrant for asking them
to put up their own shelters, cook their own food, and grind their
own flour. They would not even work in the mines where gold could
be seen in the river sands, because they had expected to pick up
the metal in lumps, or force it from the natives in such quantities
that each adventurer might return with a bushel. Hardship, illness,
short commons, the need of occasional labor, the heart-breaks over the
gold failure, the retaliations of the natives for the cruelties and
injustices of the invaders, led to the rapid decline of the city of
Isabella. Its foundations may still be visible; at least they were a
few years ago; but it is peopled only by ghosts. Some years after it
had been deserted, two Spaniards, who had been hunting in that part
of the island, entered its ruined streets. They had heard from the
Indians of strange, booming voices that echoed among its dead houses,
but had dismissed this tale as invention or fancy. The sun was low
and mists were gathering. As the hunters tur