Page:Columbus and other heroes of American discovery; (IA columbusotherher00bell).pdf/53

 of the country he had visited, weighted, however, with the condition that he should colonize it. With this end in view, and perhaps also with a hope of yet renewing his strength at the magic well, he returned to Florida in 1521, only to fall a victim in a struggle with some Indians who opposed his landing, and greeted their would-be governor with a shower of poisoned arrows.

Between the first and last visit of De Leon to Florida, several heroes of Central American discovery touched on the coast of the newly-found district, on their way to and from Mexico; and in 1518, Francis Garay, for some time Governor of Jamaica, cruised along the whole of the shores of North America bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, passing the mouths of the Mississippi, called by the Indians the Miche Sepe, or Father of Waters, and by the Spaniards the Rio del Espirito Santo, or the River of the Holy Ghost. Refraining from landing on account of the "little hospitable" appearance of the country, Garay contented himself with drawing a map of the coast-line, which he very accurately describes as "bending like a bow," adding that a line drawn from the most southerly point of Florida to the northernmost headland of Yucatan "would make the string of the bow."

The next European to visit Florida was Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, who set out with two ships from Cuba, in 1520, bound on a quest for a land called Chicora, said to exist to the north of Florida, and to contain within its limits a sacred stream, whose waters possessed powers similar to those of the Fountain of Youth. Landing between 32° and 33° N. latitude, De Ayllon was hospitably received by the simple natives, who crowded on to his vessels, and gazed with wondering,child-like eyes at all the new wonders before them. Leaving the poor creatures unmolested until he had gained their confidence, the crafty Spaniard amused himself for a time with excursions on the banks of a river to which he gave the name of the Jordan, and when he had induced 130 Indians to go on board, he suddenly returned to the ships, and gave orders for the anchors to be weighed, and set sail for Cuba.

The agony of the captives, when they saw the shores of their native land receding from before them, and realized that return was impossible, passed description. Only dimly did they understand that their fate was to work for the white men; and when a fierce storm arose, and one vessel was swallowed up, with all its inmates, by the waves, the survivors may perhaps have thought that the home from which their strange captors came was beneath the ocean. However that may be, but few of the Indians on the second ship