166
LIFE A N D VOYAGES OF
[BOOK
XI.
a little consideration, contented himself with seizing their store of provisions, and then marched towards Fort Conception, which was not quite half a league distant.* * Herrera, decad. i. lib. iii. cap. 7. Hist. del Almirante, cap. 74. Extract
of a letter from T. S. Heneken, Esq.—1847.
is situated at the foot of a hill now called Santo Cerro.
Fort Conception It is constructed of
bricks, and is almost as entire at the present day as when just finished.
It stands
in the gloom of an exuberant forest which has invaded the scene of former bustle and activity ; a spot once considered of great importance and surrounded by swarms of intelligent beings. What has become of the countless multitudes this fortress was intended to awe 1
Not a trace of them remains excepting in the records of history.
The
silence of the tomb prevails where their habitations responded to their songs and dances.
A few indigent Spaniards, living in miserable hovels, scattered
widely apart in the bosom of the forest, are now the sole occupants of this once fruitful and beautiful region. A Spanish town gradually grew up round the fortress ; the ruins of which extend to a considerable distance.
It was destroyed by an earthquake, at nine
o'clock of the morning of Saturday, 20th April, 1564, during the celebration of mass.
Part of the massive walls of a handsome church still remain, as well as
those of a very large convent or hospital, supposed to have been constructed in pursuance of the testamentary dispositions of Columbus.
The inhabitants who
survived the catastrophe retired to a small chapel, on the banks of a river, about a league distant, where the new town of La Vega was afterwards built.