greed upon, while the mountain passes towards the table-land
are carefully guarded to prevent smuggling of the crop, which is far
more remunerative than selling to the government.

We will now take the reader to the primitive tobacco plantations of
America about the middle of the Sixteenth Century. The plantations
were not located in Cuba as many have supposed but what has been
variously named Hispaniola, Hayti, and St. Domingo. It was in this
island that the Spaniards first began the cultivation of tobacco and
inaugurated (under the guise of Christianity) that career of monstrous
cruelty, with which their insatiable appetite for the burning of
heretics and for the baiting of bulls so well accords. In 1509, Diego
Columbus, the eldest son of the great discoverer, assumed in St.
Domingo, or as it was then called, Hispaniola, the vice-regal powers
which had been intrusted to him. Diego as portrayed by the historian
"was a man as noble as his father, and almost as gifted; and he had
his father's fate. Like his father, he had to bear all that Spanish
envy and Spanish malignity could inflict. In 1511, Diego Columbus sent
Diego Velasquez to conquer Cuba." From historians Velasquez gets a
better character than most of the _Conquistadores_, who in general
were as ferocious as they were audacious and fortunate. No serious
opposition was or could be offered. With the name of Velasquez the
prosperity of Cuba is inseparably identified. As Governor of Cuba he
was a vigorous colonizer and civilizer. He founded Havana, which he
called the Key of the New World, and which is said to rank as the
eighth place in the hierarchy of commercial cities. Havana, however
had long been flourishing before the seat of Government had been
transferred to it from Santiago. It was Velasquez who introduced
slavery into Cuba; and it was during his vice-royalty and under his
sanction that those memorable exploratory and conquering expeditions
began, the most astonishing of which was that to Mexico, led by
Cortez, the insubordinate lieutenant of Velasquez, whose death is said
to have been hastened by the rebellious and ungrateful conduct of
Cortez, and perhaps by the spectacle of such immense and rapid
success. The agricultural, commercial, and general growth of the West
India islands at this period would have been much more rapid if the
Spaniards had not annihilated the native population, and if they had
not been exposed to incessant piratical attacks. Thes