missionary work had fairly
begun it is said that some Spaniards drove Indians into the water,
forcibly baptized them, then cut their throats that they might not
repent their acceptance of the true faith. In their own belief there
appeared to be a purgatory and a paradise, but no hell or devil;
and, as beliefs reveal the character of the people who hold them, it
speaks well for the Cubans that the grewsome images invoked by certain
mediaeval theologians had never been created in their more generous
imaginations. When a soul left the body it had two journeys before it:
one to a dismal place, where the cruel and unjust awaited; the other
to a fair land, like the best of earth, where all was pleasant and
peaceful; for, in spite of the warlike undertakings made necessary
by irruptions of the fierce Caribs, these people held to peace as
the highest good.

Of these Indians hardly a dozen are remembered by their names, but the
chief Hatuey was revered among them for his courage and his military
skill. He had fled from Hayti to Cuba in a vain hope of escaping his
white enemy, and counselled the natives to throw all their gold into
the sea, that the Spanish might not linger on their coasts. He might
have been the one who ordered gold to be melted and poured down the
throats of his prisoners, that for one and the last time they might
have enough. The Spaniards caught him and burned him to death at
Baracoa. As he stood on the logs in chains, just before the flames
were applied, the friars pressed about him and earnestly advised him
to become a Christian, that he might not be required to roast in hell,
which would be worse than the torture he was about to endure, and which
would last forever. If only he would be baptized he could go direct
to heaven. "The white man's heaven?" he asked. "Yes." "Are there any
Spaniards in that heaven?" "Oh, yes, many." "Then light the fire."

Columbus was the more convinced that he had reached Asia because
the name of one Cuban province, Mangon, he assumed to be Mangi, a
rich district of China. That its people had tails, like monkeys, was
nothing against this theory; that footprints of alligators should be
the tracks of griffins, which had the bodies of lions and the wings
and heads of eagles, was quite in order; but most convincing of all
was the discovery by an archer, who had entered a wood in search of
game, of thirty men with pale faces, armed with clubs and lances,
and habited in white gowns,