Portuguese explorers, rounded, and then
proceeded some distance toward India.

It was after hearing the wonderful tales of these explorers that
Columbus became inspired with the idea of sailing westward on the
unknown waters, expecting thus to reach India. After untold
discouragements, and finally by the generosity of Queen Isabella, who
was brought to believe in his conjectures, he set sail from Palos,
August 3, 1492, with three small vessels manned by about ninety sailors.
The following 12th of October he first sighted the western hemisphere,
which, however, he thought to be Asia, and by the way, lived and died in
that belief. This land was one of the Bahama Islands, called by the
natives Guanahani, but christened by Columbus as San Salvador. It is now
known as Cat Island.

The 28th of the same month Columbus discovered Cuba, entering the mouth
of a river in what he believed to be that "great land," of which he had
heard so much.

From the very beginning, it was as it has existed to the present
day--the Spaniards looked for gold and were determined to exploit their
new possessions to the very last peseta that could be wrung from them.

The island was first called Juana, in honor of Prince John, son of
Ferdinand and Isabella; but, after Ferdinand's death, it received the
name of Fernandina. Subsequently, it was designated, after Spain's
patron saint, Santiago, and still later Ave Maria, in honor of the
Virgin.

Finally it received its present name, the one originally bestowed upon
it by the natives. Cuba means "the place of gold," and Spain has
constantly kept this in mind, both theoretically and practically.

At first, however, the answers received in Cuba in reply to the
questions of her discoverers as to the existence of gold were not
satisfactory. It seemed as if this ne plus ultra to the Spaniards was to
be found in a neighboring and larger island, which has been known by the
various names of Hayti, Hispaniola and Santo Domingo. The prospect of
enrichment here was so inviting that the first settlement of Spain in
the New World was made in Hayti.

The aborigines seem to have made no resistance to the coming among them
of a new race of people. They were apparently peaceful and kindly,
dwelling in a state of happy tranquillity among themselves.

Their character is best demonstrated by an extract from a letter written
by Columbus to their Catholic majesties, Ferdinand and Isabella:

"The king having been in