number succeeded in circumnavigating Africa. Yet while this new waterway gave access to the East, it was so interminably long as to be hardly practical.

The Travels of Marco Polo had stimulated Europeans with a desire to know more of a land which had impressed the illustrious Venetian as so remarkable and full of resources. The invention of printing led to the more general diffusion of such literature, and, take it all in all, many were pondering upon various plans which might lead to the working out of a new route thither.

Christopher Columbus, a native of Genoa, Italy, studied the writings of Polo and all the maps and charts then available. He was persuaded that if one should sail due west, he must come at last to the countries visited by Polo on his prolonged journey to the Orient-to Cathay (China), and Cipango (Japan). The story of his weary striving to enlist the interest of kings in his enterprise is well known,-how he wandered from court to court, vainly trying to procure funds necessary for the fitting out of an expedition. The truth was that European monarchs were concerned with matters vitally affecting their kingdoms and had scant time for men like Columbus, who appeared to his contemporaries to be almost mentally unbalanced, so intense was he in promoting his scheme.

It was Isabella of Castile who finally offered to aid Columbus, and every child in America who has had even a few years in school remembers the names of the three small vessels at last placed at his command-the Pinta, the Niña and the Santa Maria. Slight, fragile crafts they were, in the like of which no one would attempt an ocean voyage today. And yet the discovery of two unknown continents fell to the share of those who sailed in the three light barks.

To understand the disappointment, neglect and shame that overtook Columbus' later life, one must ever keep in mind the object with which he first set out-to find a new route to the Indies, as the East was often called. On that memorable morning when he planted the Spanish flag on the new-found land and took possession of it in the name of the king and queen of Spain, Columbus firmly believed he had touched upon the shores of the country concerning which Marco Polo

had written: Cathay, or possibly the islands which Polo had said skirted its eastern coast. Slight investigation, to be sure, did not reveal the much-desired riches, but it was quite enough to have given reality to a dream and, having taken such trophies as the region afforded, the vessels soon put about to carry the glad tidings back to Spain. High honors were accorded the great admiral upon his return, and the imaginations of Spanish adventurers were enkindled with wild fancies and extravagant hopes. The news of the great discovery was not heralded about very widely, for naturally Spain wished to keep her recently-found territory for herself.

Columbus made three later voyages. He visited some of the islands belonking to the West Indies group and coasted along South America and Central America. Because he supposed he had reached the Indies, the people found inhabiting the lands were called Indians. Thus we see that the name by which the American red man is commonly known was given him by mistake. In vain did Columbus search for the coveted wares of the Orient; in vain did he attempt to reach that portion of the country of which travellers had written. Then, dejected, reproached by the sovereigns who had made his great work possible, poor and broken-hearted, he died in 1506, never knowing what a boon he had conferred upon humanity.

For many years this mistaken idea of Columbus was kept alive. Spaniards, French and English came thither, not with the desire to learn of a strange country, but with the hope of being the first to reach the Orient and point the way to a new trade route. To be sure, the more they searched, the more they learned about the continent and at last the truth was borne in upon them that this was not Cathay. Even then the desire to get through a land which hindered their progress was paramount. We may read how the sixteenth century was filled with adventures made with the hope of finding an outlet to the land beyond. The St. Lawrence, Mississippi, Amazon, de la Plata, and many other rivers were traced with the vain purpose. Even Captain John Smith, of Virginia, thought that the little James river might be the way through the country to a western ocean.

And yet, as we read the strange story, and see how lives were wasted and fortunes spent with a mistaken purpose, it

need not seem so remarkable that it took men at least one hundred years to believe what was long thought beyond credence that a great, unappropriated world had been brought to light. It must ever seem marvellous, when reflected upon, that civilization after civilization had been born, kingdom after kingdom had risen and fallen, and the human race, whose progress is recorded since about 4777 B. C., remained for the most part in ignorance of a great undiscovered country. There were, to be sure, people living in the new land, but they dwelt apart from the great stream of human progress.

Spain had issued forth victorious in a terrible war with the Moors a war which had been finally waged for life or death. Having driven the Mohammedans from Christian Spain, there were many devoted Spaniards who saw another religious mission opening before them: to convert the simple people of the newly found lands to the orthodox faith. For this reason, among others, the Pope was besought to make Spain a grant of the world discovered by Columbus. Alexander VI, utterly unscrupulous about important matters, was not likely to discern that in this comparatively unimportant matter—as it was then viewed—he was acting beyond any authority he possessed, when he gave to the king of Spain, and his heirs forever, such lands as lay west of an imaginary line drawn through the Atlantic ocean.

Now Spain entered upon a wonderful chapter of her development. Only in late years has the world awakened to the tremendous part she played in the early history of America. With a courage not exceeded by men at any time, her proudhearted subjects threw themselves into the prodigious task of exploration and discovery. While other European nations still went their ways, as though no momentous change had taken place in the world, Spanish leaders and priests were pressing through the well-nigh impenetrable forests and deserts of America, making their conquests and founding their settlements.

"She was the only European nation that did not drowse. Her mailed explorers overran Mexico and Peru, grasped their incalculable riches, and made those kingdoms inalienable parts of Spain. Cortez had conquered and was colonizing a savage country a dozen times as large as England years before the

first English-speaking expedition had ever seen the mere coast where it was to plant colonies in the New World; and Pizarro did a still greater work. Ponce de Leon had taken possession for Spain of what is now one of the States of our Union a generation before any of those regions were seen by Saxons. That first traveller in North America, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, had walked his unparalleled way across the continent from Florida to the Gulf of California half a century before the first foot of our ancestors touched our soil.

"They were Spaniards who first saw and explored the greatest gulf in the world; Spaniards who discovered the two greatest rivers; Spaniards who found the greatest ocean; Spaniards who first knew that there were two continents of America; Spaniards who first went round the world! There were Spaniards who had carved their way into the far interior of our own land, as well as of all to the south, and founded their cities a thousand miles inland long before the first Anglo-Saxon came to the Atlantic sea-board. That early Spanish spirit of finding out was fairly superhuman. Why, a poor Spanish lieutenant with twenty soldiers pierced an unspeakable desert and looked down upon the greatest natural wonder of America or of the world-the Grand Cañon of the Colorado-three full centuries before any 'American' eyes saw it! And so it was from Colorado to Cape Horn. Heroic, impetuous, imprudent Balboa had walked that awful walk across the Isthmus, and found the Pacific Ocean, and built on its shores the first ships that were ever made in the Americas, and sailed that unknown sea, and had been dead more than half a century before Drake and Hawkins saw it." 1

The Spanish explored Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, found the great ocean,-called by them for some time the South Sea, the Pacific, and crossed it. They traced the Father of Waters the Mississippi-to its mouth, and from Florida crossed the continent to New Mexico, Arizona and California. Brazil was explored and the silver mines of Peru soon made to yield up their treasure.

The French joined in the search to the Indies. Following the St. Lawrence from its mouth, Cartier landed at the rapids, which he named Lachine (Chinese), and spent the winter at

Lummis, The Spanish Pioneers, 20.

Mont Royal-Montreal. Soon after Columbus' great discovery, John and Sebastian Cabot sailed across the Atlantic from England and coasted along the shores of Newfoundland. For thus reaching the supposed "China" John Cabot was given ten pounds-about $500- and a yearly pension amounting to about $1,000.

By great injustice the new world was called America. It happened in this way: An Italian by the name of Amerigo Vespucci made several visits to the shores of Brazil. Upon his last return to Europe he wrote extensively of his voyages. He said that only three-quarters of the world had been known to the ancients and that the other fourth had now been found. A German map maker suggested that this fourth be called America, and so named Brazil on his map. In time the whole of South America was thus designated, and when it was at last understood that the two continents were connected, the whole of the new world came to be known by this name.

After the lapse of fifty years the coasts of the two continents had been quite generally visited. No permanent settlements had yet been made, and for fifty years longer the hope of finding an inside passage to China deterred men from making the most of their opportunities.