'The bloodthirsty and deceitful men did not live out half their days.' By their own passions, and by no miraculous Nemesis, they civilised themselves off the face of the earth; and to them succeeded, as to the conquerors at Hastings, a nobler and gentler type of invaders.

During the first half of the seventeenth century, Spaniards of ancient blood and high civilisation came to Trinidad, and re-settled the island: especially the family of Farfan--'Farfan de los Godos,' once famous in mediaeval chivalry--if they will allow me the pleasure of for once breaking a rule of mine, and mentioning a name--who seem to have inherited for some centuries the old blessings of Psalm xxxvii .-- 'Put thou thy trust in the Lord, and be doing good; dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.
'The Lord knoweth the days of the godly: and their inheritance shall endure for ever.
'They shall not be confounded in perilous times; and in the days of dearth they shall have enough.' Toward the end of the seventeenth century the Indians summoned up courage to revolt, after a foolish ineffectual fashion.

According to tradition, and an old 'romance muy doloroso,' which might have been heard sung within the last hundred years, the governor, the Cabildo, and the clergy went to witness an annual feast of the Indians at Arena, a sandy spot (as its name signifies) near the central mountain of Tamana.

In the middle of one of their warlike dances, the Indians, at a given signal, discharged a flight of arrows, which killed the governor, all the priests, and almost all the rest of the whites.

Only a Farfan escaped, not without suspicion of forewarning by the rebels.