'Put thou thy trust in the Lord, and be doing good; dwell in the
land, and verily thou shalt be fed.

'The Lord knoweth the days of the godly: and their inheritance
shall endure for ever.

'They shall not be confounded in perilous times; and in the days of
dearth they shall have enough.'

Toward the end of the seventeenth century the Indians summoned up
courage to revolt, after a foolish ineffectual fashion. According
to tradition, and an old 'romance muy doloroso,' which might have
been heard sung within the last hundred years, the governor, the
Cabildo, and the clergy went to witness an annual feast of the
Indians at Arena, a sandy spot (as its name signifies) near the
central mountain of Tamana. In the middle of one of their warlike
dances, the Indians, at a given signal, discharged a flight of
arrows, which killed the governor, all the priests, and almost all
the rest of the whites. Only a Farfan escaped, not without
suspicion of forewarning by the rebels. He may have been a merciful
man and just; while considering the gentle nature of the Indians, it
is possible that some at least of their victims deserved their fate,
and that the poor savages had wrongs to avenge which had become
intolerable. As for the murder of the priests, we must remember
always that the Inquisition was then in strength throughout Spanish
America; and could be, if it chose, aggressive and ruthless enough.

By the end of the seventeenth century there were but fifteen
pueblos, or Indian towns, in the island; and the smallpox had made
fearful ravages among them. Though they were not forced to work as