The most celebrated of these churches is the one on the Santo Cerro,
the Holy Hill, built on the exact spot where forces of Columbus
planted their cross when defending the hill against the Indians. After
the Indians had stormed the place all their efforts to destroy the
cross were unavailing, so the story goes, and they were finally driven
to precipitate flight by the apparition of the Virgin, sitting on the
cross. A church was founded on the spot and a convent near by. During
the dark years of the colony the convent was abandoned and fell to
ruin but at no time was a priest lacking to look after the site of the
miracle. In the time of Heureaux the humble wooden chapel then
crowning the hill was replaced by a larger but modest brick church,
the greater part of the bricks being carried up from the ruins of the
old city of La Vega which lie at the foot of the hill. The church
occupies an eminence overlooking the great Royal Plain. Its most
prized treasure, which is reverently kissed by the priest before he
shows it to the stranger, consists of two splinters about an inch
long, of black wood, parts of the original cross of Columbus, enclosed
in another small cross of gold filigree work.
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