Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/35

Rh become realities. One navigator after another sailed the seas of unknown limits, discovered islands, landed on strange coasts, beheld primeval forests and lofty mountain-peaks clothed with untrodden snows, and, returning to the settlements on the islands, they brought back more or less accurate accounts of lands where gold and pearls were plentiful, peopled by natives eager to exchange these treasures for Spanish trinkets, at the same time producing enough specimens of precious metal to vouch for the truth of their descriptions. Rich colonists, as well as merchants in Cadiz and Seville, were easily found to risk funds in fitting out expeditions for the dual purpose of exploration and trade, while numberless were the skilful pilots, daring sailors, and bold soldiers of fortune ready to enlist for such service. After conquering Puerto Rico, Juan Ponce de Leon cruised among the Lucayan Islands, and in 1512, discovered the coast which he named Florida, where, instead of the fountain of eternal youth he sought, he met his death; in 15 13, Balboa first beheld the Pacific Ocean from the mountain ridge on the isthmus of Darien; in 1515 Juan Diaz de Solis discovered the mouth of the river Plate.

In 1517 Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba, a rich planter of Cuba, organised and equipped a fleet of three vessels, manned in part by some of the survivors of the first colony at Darien, and of which he himself took command. The principal object of this expedition was to capture Indians to be sold as slaves in Cuba, and the Governor furnished one ship on condition that he should be reimbursed in slaves (Bernal Diaz, Hist, de la Conquista, cap. i.). The first land discovered was a small island to which the name of Las Mugeres (Women's Island) was given, because of the images of female deities which they found in the temple there. This island lies off the extreme point of Yucatan, and from it the Spaniards saw what seemed to them a large and important city with many towers and