, and many more. Cortez, Pizarro, Velasquez and
others might conquer lands for Spain. These others would see to it that
their deeds were fittingly chronicled.

There was something more, still more significant. There arose
distinguished writers, producing notable works, in the countries of
Spanish America; some born there, some travelling thither from the
peninsula. It was in 1558 that the University of Santo Domingo was
founded, which for a time served all the Spanish Indies and was a great
centre of learning. How many poets and dramatists, not to mention
historians and other writers, there were in America in that century, we
are reminded in Cervantes's "Viaje de Parnaso" and Lope de Vega's
"Laurel de Apolo." These writers were chiefly in Mexico and Peru, for
obvious reasons. Those were Spain's chief colonies, and they were those
which had themselves the most noteworthy past, a past marked with a high
degree of civilization. The first book ever printed in the Western
Hemisphere was the "Breve y Compendiosa Doctrina Cristiana," published
by Juan de Zumarraga, the first Bishop of Mexico, in Mexico in 1539.

It was about the middle of the century that there appeared the first
American book of real literary merit. This was "La Araucana," a Chilean
epic poem, by Alonso de Ercilla y Zuniga. Another epic, with Hernando
Cortez for its hero, was "Cortez Valeroso," by Gabriel Lasso de la Vega,
in 1588. The next year saw Juan de Castellanos's prodigious historical
and biographical poem of 150,000 lines, "Elegias de Varones Ilustres de
Indias." Another epic of Cortez was Antonio de Saavedra Guzman's
"Peregrino Indiano," in 1599.

In all these things Cuba had no part. In later centuries that island
could boast of poets and other writers worthy to rank with their best
contemporaries of other lands. But in that marvellous sixteenth century
she seems to have produced not a single name worthy of remembrance. In
the rich productivity of Spanish intellect Cuba remained unrepresented.
In Oriente, in Camaguey and in Havana there may be found legends and
ballads of unknown but ancient origin, which are assumed to have been
composed perhaps in the days of Velasquez, and to have been passed down
orally from generation to generation. _Quien sabe?_ It is quite probable
that such was their origin; but it is quite certain that their authors
are unknown.

For this lack of intellectual productivity in the first century of
Cuba's history, and ind