nd of Flowers. There is no more touching
picture in all the early history of Cuba than that of this devoted
woman, scanning the northern horizon in vain for the appearance of one
whose restless and adventurous body was sleeping the last sleep in the
bed of the Father of Waters.

[Illustration: LA FUERZA

Havana's oldest and most famous fortress and the oldest inhabited
building in the Western Hemisphere. The construction of it was prolonged
through the administrations of many Governors and was for years the
chief issue of political contention in the island. It was long the
Governor's residence as well as a fortress; from it Hernando de Soto set
out for the exploration of Florida and the discovery of the Mississippi
River, and from its ramparts his wife, Dona Isabel, long but vainly
maintained her daily vigil for his return.]

News came at last, to end in grief her agonizing vigil. It was near the
end of 1543 that some three hundred weary and worn survivors of de
Soto's expedition reached Panuco, on the Mexican coast, with tidings of
their leader's death and the destruction of all the rest of the party.
They had wandered through what is now the State of Georgia northward as
far as the Tennessee Mountains, thence back to Mobile Bay, in Alabama,
thence northwest to the Mississippi, and to the Ouachita, or Washita, in
Arkansas. While thence descending the Mississippi, in June, 1542, de
Soto had died, and his body had been sunk in the great river. The
remainder of his company, led by Luis de Alvarado, had continued down
the Mississippi River to the Gulf, and thence sailed along the coast to
Panuco.

Thus ended the career of one of the most famous of all the Spanish
explorers; and thus ended another brief but disastrous chapter in Cuban
history. The island had been drained of men, horses, supplies of all
kinds; for its population was still so small that the loss of a few
hundred of its best men and horses was a serious deprivation. Its own
domestic interests had been neglected. Its government had become
inefficient. The Indians, taking advantage of the weakness of the
Spaniards, had begun to cherish hopes of regaining their old freedom,
and in some places had risen forcibly to seek that end, with the effect
of enraging the Spaniards against them even to the extreme of resolving
upon either their complete enslavement or their extermination.

Indeed, serious trouble arose with the Indians during de Soto's brief
stay in th