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Following the instructions of the sailor, the cacique El Comendador and all his people of both sexes went each day at sunset to the chapel dedicated to the Virgin. Entering, they knelt, and reverently bowing their heads and joining their hands they saluted the image by repeated invocations, Ave Maria, Ave Maria; for there were very few who had learnt the whole prayer.
Other villages are San Jose de Ocoa, also known as Maniel, 18 miles northeast of Azua, founded in 1844 in a picturesque region; Tubano, 34 miles northwest of Azua; El Cercado, 12 miles southwest of Las Matas de Farfan; and Comendador, near the Haitian frontier, 13 miles west of Las Matas de Farfan, the seat of one of the inland custom-houses.
In the calm cabinet of the Escorial, Philip and his comendador mayor are laying their heads together, preparing the invasion of England; making arrangements for King Alexander's coronation in that island, and like sensible, farsighted persons as they are even settling the succession to the throne after Alexander's death, instead of carelessly leaving such distant details to chance, or subsequent consideration.
An unknown sailor, who was ill, had been left by some Spaniards who were coasting the length of Cuba, with the cacique El Comendador, and this sailor was very kindly received by the cacique and his people. When he recovered his health, he frequently served the cacique as lieutenant in his expeditions, for the islanders are often at war one with another; and El Comendador was always victorious.
The same enterprise was attempted at other times, and was carried out by Juan Sebastian del Cano, Comendador Loaisa, the Saoneses, and the bishop of Plasencia. But these did not bear the fruits expected, on account of the hardships and perils of so long a voyage, and the opposition received by those who reached Maluco, from the Portuguese there.
In the month of May of six hundred and two, four ships came to Manila from Nueva Espana, with a new governor and president of the Audiencia, named Don Pedro de Acuna, knight of the Order of St. John, comendador of Salamanca, and lately governor of Cartagena in Tierra Firme.
In response to the petition of the Comendador they left with him a Spaniard, who volunteered for the purpose of teaching the cacique's subjects and their neighbours the Angelic Salutation, their idea being that the more words of the prayer to the Virgin they knew, the better disposed she would be to them. Enciso agreed, after which he resumed his course to Hispaniola, which was not far distant.
The sailor was an ignorant creature, but a man of good heart, who cultivated a peculiar devotion for the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God. He even carried about him, as constantly as his clothes, a picture of the Blessed Virgin, very well painted on paper, and he declared to El Comendador that it was because of it that he was always victorious.
Our plaza was so full of romantic suggestion that I am rather glad now I had no association with it. I am sure I could not have borne at the time to know, as I have only now learned by recurring to my Baedeker, that in the old Franciscan cloister once there had stood the equestrian statue of the Comendador who dismounts and comes unbidden to the supper of Don Giovanni in the opera.
Then, too, the Comendador Bobadilla was already aboard, and Ovando was eager to be rid of him and also of Francisco Roldan, who never had been, and never could be, of use in any colony; so Ovando, when he read Columbus's warning, threw back his head and exclaimed, "Nonsense! Let them start just the same!" And start they did; and scarcely were the vessels out of sight when the hurricane broke.
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