T

HE alleged partiality of Jehovah toward Italians, is an Archimedean lever in world history, which historians have unanimously and mysteriously ignored. Strange! For that mighty fact has controlled national currents and destinies, ever since the Emperor Constantine formed his copartnership with the Christian priesthood. Consider the Dark Ages, wherein men groped about in mental and spiritual gloom, haunted by all kinds of monstrous fears, possessed by all sorts of fantastic superstitions-a time in which no man dared to harbor an idea that was not in conformity to the edicts of Rome: who, then, was God on earth?

Italian.

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Was he the wisest of men? No. Was he the best of men? No. Was he the strongest of men? No. Why, then, did the Lord God Omnipotent always choose the Italian to represent Him on earth, to bear the keys, to bind and loose, to dispense heavenly mercies, to impose heavenly penalties, to give away crowns and kingdoms, to say who should go to heaven and who should go to hell? No one dared to ask the question.

In Medieval Ages, the divine partiality to the Latin race was

equally manifest. The Italian was surpassed by the Celt and the Teuton in every other capacity, save as to representing the Almighty. On the battle-field, the Italian was match for the Norman; in literature, he was easily outclassed by other races of men: in all that made up a Man, the Celt and the Teuton towered above the effeminate, tortuous, licentious, dissimulating Italian: yet God invariably selected this inferior type of man, as His personal mouth-piece and substituteto speak and act for Him, here below. Strange, wasn't it?

Incidentally, I may remark that God's persevering partiality for the weaker, lower type has come on down to our own day. The Italian is nowhere, in political power; is nowhere, on the battle-field (even the niggers of Abyssinia whipped him completely, a few years ago,) and is nowhere, in robust, progressive, world-march, as compared to the indefatigable, indomitable, unconquerable White-faced man—yet God is unwilling to be personally represented, in mundane affairs, by any other person than a member of a decadent, hybrid, immoral race! Very strange, isn't it?

He who would understand the story of mankind, must study the relations of priesthoods to dynasties. (On that subject is yet to be written the greatest of profane books.)

And to arrive at the true significance of the successive episodes of American history, it is indispensable that the student should be acquainted with the religious wars which the Italian Vice-gerents of God precipitated upon Europedevastating some of her fairest provinces, razing some of her noblest cities, drenching her soil with rivers of innocent blood; slaughtering in the name of the merciful Christ a greater number of men, women and children than ever fell before the ruthless swords of the fanatical hosts of Mahomet. "Believe in Allah and Prophet, or die!" shouted the Saracen: "Believe in me, the Pope, or die!" cried the Italian impostor. The difference was, that the Mohammedan dealt the swift blow which gave quick death; while the papal demoniacs were never satisfied until with rack, and club, and iron pinchers, and slow fires, they had subjected their victims to the utmost possible limits of endurable torture.

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This historic fact explains much of American history. Why were Europeans who were accustomed to the comforts of home-life, in Europe; and who were amply endowed with worldly goods, so willing to risk the perilous voyage across the ocean, and to brave the terrors of the American wilderness? There is only one explanation. To remain at home meant the abject surrender of all that a Man holds dear; or the

certainty of horrible persecution and death.

Bear in mind that the Spaniards, the Catholics, did not mean to make their home in America. The Spanish soldier came, to rob the native of his gold: the Spanish priest, to convert him to the Roman creed. The soldier was on a temporary expedition: the priest, on a mission.

Columbus, Pizarro, Cortez, Ponce de Leon, DeSoto-none of them dreamed of becoming permanent settlers in the New World. To get rich quickly, without regard to means and methods, was the purpose of each of these inhuman monsters. In the case of Ponce de Leon, indeed, we have this difference: the years were climbing up on the old cavalier, and he hearkened unto a fabulous story of a Fountain of Perpetual Youth. Certain of his sins, and doubtful of his salvation, he preferred, as many good Christians inconsistently do, to remain in this Vale of Tears, rather than hie him to his apartment in the mansion in the skies. Therefore, Ponce did concentrate his energies on trying to find the waters that would turn hoary Winter into verdant Spring, intending to live his life over again, not in America, but in his native land.

The truth of history demands that I draw a distinction between DeSoto and such characters as Columbus, Pizarro, Cortez, Cabaza.

Of all the Spanish adventurers who came to the New World seeking gold, DeSoto is the most attractive. In some respects he was a gallant Knight-errant. Brave as his sword, he was capable of tender and constant devotion to a lady-love. Scornfully rejected by the Marquis De

Avila, when he sued for the hand of Avila's daughter, he waited for her sixteen years, during five of which not a letter or a message passed between the lovers. At length, after the series of perfidious stratagems which overturned the Peruvian Empire, DeSoto returned to Spain, laden with spoil; and he married the beautiful Isabella, who had been as loyal as himself. Then for two years, he is happy with her, and is the favorite at the Spanish court. His lavish expenditures having greatly reduced his wealth, he must needs equip a fleet, at his own cost, and return to America for more loot. In vain, his devoted wife pleads with him to be content, and to live in domestic bliss with her: he turns a deaf ear to sane counsels, and sets sail expecting to find in Florida another Peru to pillage.

Nothing in the annals of the human race surpasses the record made by that proud, intrepid, inflexible adventurer. Knowing, as I do, the character of the swamps, the bogs, the tangled undergrowth of the lower South, my amazement increases at every march made by DeSoto, as he leads his little army from the Gulf Coast, to the interior of Georgia, and thence toward the Mississippi, and far beyond!

The atrocious cruelty with which his predecessors had treated the Indians, made his own progress the more difficult; and his five-years of journeying was almost a continuous running-fight.

The passion for gold, and the bitterness bred of repeated disappointment appear to have brutalized the once chivalrous cavalier; for the perfidious barbarity which he visited upon Tuscaloosa, the Alabama

Indian chief, equalled any atrocity of Columbus, Cortez or Pizarro.

The fact is, that the Florida Indians told him the exact truth about the gold region. He was assured that the yellow metal which they possessed, and which the original chroniclers name "red copper," came from the North, a six-days' journey. A day's march for an Indian would be, easily, 50 or 60 miles, for they usually went, single file, in a brisk trot. Therefore, had DeSoto believed the story told him, and persistently kept on, Northward, he would have penetrated the gold region of Georgia.

His infernal cruelty to the natives caused him to miss the object of all his toils. His guide, an Indian youth of North Georgia, was taking him along the well-worn trail that led into the Cherokee region; but, on reaching what is now Washington county, this Indian guide pretended to have a fit, and to see an apparition which forbade him to go farther, in that direction.

This Indian was shrewd: he immediately embraced the Catholic faith, and the priests baptized him. Consequently, DeSoto could not, without scandal, put him to the torture, or kill him, out of hand. But it is exceedingly strange that neither De Soto, nor any of his gold-hungry companions, suspected the artifice and continued to pursue the same trail. Instead,they allowed themselves to be decoyed off into the trackless wilds of what are now Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi.

They actually discovered the Hot Springs; which, after all, may have been the Fountain whose wonderful cures, exaggerated as they passed

from mouth to mouth, gave rise to the fable which inspired the quest of Ponce de Leon. And, very probably, his Indian guides, misled him, round and round—not wishing that he should occupy their country, at the Hot Springs, intruding upon their hunting grounds, and making a permanence of the brutal Spanish soldier, who outraged their women, and committed other intolerable deviltries.

De Soto paid no particular attention to the Hot Springs, nor to the mighty river which he "discovered." The Mississippi was, to him, nothing else than an obstacle in his way to the gold-fields, beyond. For, by this, time, he had been told of the mineral wealth of the West; and, tireless man! he meant to press on. In vain, the fond, heart-hungry wife reaches him by letter, entreating him to come home-expressing a grave, anxious, concern as to those atrocities practised upon the poor Indians. The letter fills him with melancholy, but does not relax his resolution.

What happened to him, beyond the Mississippi, is not clear. He pushed far into the West; and, the West; and, again, was headed in the right direction for the gold veins; but it would seem that some invincible Indian tribe (the Comanches?) barred his way; and his remnant band, footsore and disheartened, refused to go farther.

At least, that is my inference. The Spanish chroniclers confess the Indian resistance, and the Spanish retreat my conception of DeSoto's character suggests the explanation that his men mutinied and refused to go farther away from the great river, by which they knew they could return to Cuba,

The intense dissatisfaction which prevailed in DeSoto's little band; the known fact that some of his officers bore him deadly enmity; and the conflicting accounts of his sudden, mysterious death-coupled with night burial, in the Mississippi, warrant the suspicion that he was poisoned.

One sad detail, and I hurry on: After five years of the loneliest suspense, the anxious wife, Isabella, hears the story of her lover-husband's death. A survivor of the expedition brought it to Cuba, to which she had accompanied DeSoto. On hearing the piteous tale, which but confirmed her fears and her warning, she never doubts it for a moment: she believes it, and in three days she is dead.

Coligny, had he lived in the days when cardinal virtues were deified; and when men put themselves to death, rather than live dishonored, would have had a place in "Plutarch's Lives." Aristides was not more just than was Gaspard de Coligny; ligny; nor was Epamanondas a truer patriot; nor was Scipio a better soldier; nor Lycergus, an abler statesman. Had he been of baser metal, Coligny might readily have won the temporary triumph which the Guises enjoyed; and intsead of now occupying the position of a beacon-light of history, might be a forgotten nobody, like the two ignoble brothers, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine. They were victorious, then; he, now: they saw nothing but the Present, as so many commonplace people do: he saw The Future, and lived and died for it, as the few do, who feel called from on high to pass on to other men and to other ages the sacred

torch, without which the world were dark indeed.

In the year 1561, Coligny determined to plant a colony of Protesttants in Florida. He was too powerful to fear Catholic persecution himself, but he sympathized so deeply with those who were the helpless sufferers from religious intolerance that he wished to provide a haven of refuge for them. This he could not hope to do in the Old World: consequently, his eyes turned to the New. At his own expense, he equipped two vessels which set sail from Havre, in February, 1562. The company consisted of sailors, town-workmen, and "a few gentlemen." Jean Ribault, was in command. Why, in the name of common sense! did the great Admiral, Coligny fail to include in the expedition, some peasant, skilled in the planting of seed and the cultivation of crops? It was one of those fatal mistakes, as to practical detail, which great men so often make.

In two months, the vessels sighted the coast of Florida, near what is now St. Augustine.

Ribault landed, followed the coast Northward to the great river; (St. Johns) and, on one of its islands, he determined to build a fort. He found the natives friendly and helpful, as all the early navigators and "discoverers" did.

He selected certain of his company to constitute this settlement, after which he sailed away, returning to France, which he found in the throes of the worst of all wars, a religious civil-war.

The little colony passed the summer in peace and plenty, subsisting on the abundant game, wild fruits, and the grain given to them by the

Indians. Although the colony was planted in a climate which matures a crop of vegetables or of grain in a few weeks, not a seed was put in the ground. No thought of the future disturbed these impractical Frenchmen. That seasons and conditions would change, and the food supply fail, did not apparently occur to them at all.

The season did change, and the food-supply did fail; and, although the Indians were willing, they were not able, to feed the colony through the winter.

So, a "starving time" came; and the Frenchmen had to live on acorns, roots, chance catches of fish, and an occasional deer.

To make their plight the more miserable, the Captain of the colonists, Albert de la Pierra, was a tyrant. With his own hands, he hanged one of the men; and he banished another to an islet, three leagues away from the fort to die of hunger, sans miracle.

As might have been expected, the colony mutinied, and put their Captain to death.

Dreading a second winter and not even yet thinking of the soil and its tillage, as a source of food-supply, the colonists decided to return to France.

By the help of the Indians, and with almost incredible labor, they built a sea-going vessel, which they refused to load with more provisions than were necessary for the quickest possible voyage. They would not admit the probability of encountering a calm-that terror of the seas which steam annihilated!

So, away they went, on their voyage to home and loved ones; and, of course, they were becalmed, in