_OLD CUBA_


Christopher Columbus was a man of lively imagination. Had he been an
ordinary, prosaic and plodding individual, he would have stayed at home
combing wool as did his prosaic and plodding ancestors for several
generations. At the age of fourteen he went to sea and soon developed an
active curiosity about regions then unknown but believed to exist. There
was even then some knowledge of western Asia, and even of China as
approached from the west. Two and two being properly put together, the
result was a reasonable argument that China and India could be reached from
the other direction, that is, by going westward instead of eastward.

In the early autumn of the year 1492, Columbus was busy discovering islands
in the Caribbean Sea region, and, incidentally, seeking for the richest
of the group. From dwellers on other islands, he heard of one, called
Cubanacan, larger and richer than any that he had then discovered. A
mixture of those tales with his own vivid imagination produced a belief
in a country of wide extent, vastly rich in gold and gems, and already a
centre of an extensive commerce. Cruising in search of what he believed to
be the eastern coast of Asia, he sighted the shore of Cuba on the morning
of October 28, 1492. His journal, under date of October 24, states: "At
midnight I tripped my anchors off this _Cabo del Isleo de Isabella_, where
I was pitched to go to the island of Cuba, which I learn from these people
is very large and magnificent, and there are gold and spices in it, and
large ships and merchants. And so I think it must be the island of Cipango
(Japan), of which they tell such wonders." The record, under date of
Sunday, 28th of October, states: "Continued for the nearest land of Cuba,
and entered a beautiful estuary, clear of rocks and other dangers. The