CHAP.
VII.]
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
51
To enforce the payment of these tributes, and to maintain the subjection of the island, Columbus put the fortress already built in a strong state of defence, and erected others. Beside those of Isabella, and of St. Thomas, in the mountains of Cibao, there were now the fortress of Magdalena, in the Royal Vega, near the site of the old town of Santiago, on the river Jalaqua, two leagues from the place where the new town was afterwards built ; another called Santa Catalina, the site of which is near the Estencia Yaqui ; another called Esperanza, on the banks of the river Yaqui, facing the outlet of the mountain pass La Puerta de los Hidalgos, now the pass of Marney ; but the most important of those recently erected, was Fort Conception, in one of the most fruitful and beautiful parts of the Vega, about fifteen leagues to the east of Esperanza, controlling the extensive and populous domains of Guarionex.* In this way was the yoke of servitude fixed upon the island, and its thraldom effectually insured. Deep despair now fell upon the natives when they found a perpetual task inflicted upon them, enforced at stated and frequently recurring periods. Weak and indolent by nature, unused to labor of any kind, and brought up in the untasked idleness of their soft climate and their fruitful groves, death itself seemed preferable to a life of toil and anxiety. They saw no end to this harassing evil, which had so suddenly fallen upon them ; no escape from its all-pervading influence ; no prospect of return to that roving independence and ample leisure, so dear to the wild inhabitants of the forest. The pleasant life of the island was at an end : the dream in the shade by day ; the slumber during the sultry noontide heat by the fountain or the stream, or under the spreading palm-tree ; and the song, the * Las Casas, ubi sap., cap. 110.