Page:The Ifs of History (1907).pdf/48

 the mainland, the northeastward trend of the coast, reaching back toward Spain by just so much, would have beckoned him northward, not southward. Even if he had explored southwardly, by some chance, he must have returned northward when he had reached the point of the Florida peninsula; and in the northerly direction he would have cruised, returning Europe-ward. And he would have annexed the land step by step, as he annexed Cuba, Hispaniola, and all the southern lands as fast as he touched them.

The Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, would have been the scenes of the Spaniards' settlement for a hundred years. Though afterward they took Florida, that was as a mere side issue; it was unconsidered, neglected, after Cuba and Mexico; and was passed on at length to the race that came to the mainland more than a hundred years after the landfall at San Salvador.