Every arrangement was
completed for final action and with men and money, munitions of
war and ships, all in ample supply, it was evident that the
crucial test was soon to come, and that war was at last an actual
fact.
CHAPTER II.
HOW COLUMBUS FOUND THE "PEARL OF THE ANTILLES."
In gratitude of Spain to the Great Discoverer Who Gave Her a New
World--How Spain's Evil Colonial Policy Lost the Western
Hemisphere to That Obsolete Nation--Early Settlement of Cuba--
Character of the Natives at the Time of the Discovery--Founding of
the First Cities--Havana Becomes the Island Capital--Docility of
the Natives and Their Extermination by Spanish Oppressors.
Cuba and Columbus are names inseparably connected. This largest
and most fruitful island of the Spanish Main was discovered by the
great navigator himself on the 28th day of October, 1492, only a
short time after his first landing upon the soil of the western
hemisphere on the island of San Salvador. There is a sentimental
association to Americans in the thought that the discovery of our
own continent was due to the pioneer expeditions sent from Spain.
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