Alas! History ever repeats itself. As Mexicans and Peruvians,
after receiving their conquerors with confidence and enthusiasm,
came to rue the day they had opened their arms to strangers, so the
European peoples, before a quarter of a century was over, realized
that the hordes from across the sea who were over-running their
lands, raising prices, crowding the native students out of the
schools, and finally attempting to force an entrance into society,
had little to recommend them or justify their presence except
money. Even in this some of the intruders were unsatisfactory.
Those who had been received into the "bosom" of hotels often forgot
to settle before departing. The continental women who had provided
the wives of discoverers with the raiment of the country (a luxury
greatly affected by those ladies) found, to their disgust, that
their new customers were often unable or unwilling to offer any
remuneration.
In consequence of these and many other disillusions, Americans
began to be called the "Destroyers," especially when it became
known that nothing was too heavy or too bulky to be carried away by
the invaders, who tore the insides from the native houses, the
paintings from the walls, the statues from the temples, and
transported this booty across the seas, much in the same way as the
Romans had plundered Greece. Elaborate furniture seemed especially
to attract the new arrivals, who acquired vast quantities of it.
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