Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/31

Rh region of myths and mystery. To see how that idea got abroad in the world, it will be necessary to go back to the opening of the Fifteenth century and follow the current of geographical exploration around the world.

The proposition of Columbus to find a short cut to Asia by sailing west from Spain was not to perish with his death. It was the good fortune of the Italian navigator, Americus Vespucius, who after Columbus' death, made four voyages to America and finally discovered the mainland of the continent near the equator. And like Columbus he too returned to Spain and died poor at Seville in 1512, without knowing he had discovered a separate continent. In his letter to the King of Portugal, in whose services he had sailed to the new world, he writes July 18, 1500: "We discovered a very large country of Asia."

But the half discovered secret of all the ages was not to remain hidden from the eyes of man. Other courageous spirits followed in the wake of Columbus and Vespucius. Sebastian Cabot, an Englishman, discovered the coast of Labrador in 1497, and on a third voyage, entered Hudson's bay in 1517 before Hudson died. In 1498, Vasco de Gama under the patronage of the king of Portugal, doubled the Cape of Good Hope and opened a new route to the Indies. This same king in 1501 sent Gasper Cortereal with two vessels to explore the northwestern ocean. In 1512 the Spanish navigator Juan Ponce de Leon discovered the Gulf of Mexico. In 1513, Vasco Nunez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama where President Taft is now digging a canal, and discovered the mighty Pacific ocean. It was a revelation second only to the discovery of Columbus. What must have been the wonder of those wandering Spaniards as they looked down from the mountain tops to the vast ocean glittering in the morning sun.

The discovery of the Pacific ocean was a great event, and had been accomplished by the first land journey to the interior. It then began to dawn upon the sea-rovers that there was another ocean to be crossed to reach the riches of India. And from this discovery all the country south of the Isthmus of Panama was given up to the Spanish. And while the title to South America was thus accorded to Spain, the Spaniards did not abate one jot or title of their claim to North America also. And in the year 1539, Ferdinand de Soto, one of Spain's most distinguished soldiers, gathered an army of six hundred men in the Island of Cuba, and with two hundred horses and a herd of swine, sailed for the western coast of Florida, where he arrived on the 30th of May, and on landing his men, was attacked by the natives, being the first opposition made by the Indians to the occupation of the new world by the white man. From this landing point, De Soto forced his way westward against repeated attacks from the Indians until he reached and discovered the Mississippi river at the point where the north boundary line of the state of Mississippi intersects the river. Under this title of discovery, Spain held the territory down to the year 1820.

It may be supposed that on account of this activity of the Spanish in the south, the commercial and colonizing projects of the English were confined to the North Atlantic sea coast. And consequently we find Martin Frobisher, an English navigator, in 1576-8 making three voyages to America, giving his name to Frobisher's strait, but not finding a northwest passage to Asia. Frobisher was followed by another Englishman—John Davis, in 1587-9 in three voyages, who gave his name to Davis strait. In 1570, Francis Drake, afterwards the great Sir Francis, boldly following the route of Magellan around the south end of South America, and pouncing upon the Spanish merchant vessels ladened with gold and silver from the mines of Peru, attempted to get back to England by following up the Pacific coast past California and Oregon and going through a mythical northeast passage to the Atlantic ocean. All these navigators, and many more that we have not time to notice, were trying to find the "Strait of Anian," which was reputed to be the short cut through North