Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/355

Rh In his retreat, he observes with a serene and penetrating eye, that applause and honour, nay friends even, come with fortune, and with her depart. The same reasonings apply to countries, in the history of which the consequences are equally cogent. In the time of Solomon, how many regions did not the earth contain, felicitous in the wisdom of their legislation, in the flourishing condition of their agriculture, or in the pastures which afforded nourishment to their useful and numerous flocks? Their sites, and even their names, have, notwithstanding, been forgotten, because they were poor; and we bear in our remembrance Ophir alone, on account of the gold with which it abounded. If the land discovered by Columbus had not afforded the prospect of any other utility, beside that of introducing, among its aborigines, the customs and faith of the Europeans, the glory of that adventurous Genoese would have vanished with his life, or even before, with the enterprize itself. Ferrer Maldonado, Quiros, Hudson, Baffins, Cook, &c. exposed their lives a thousand times to discover unknown lands; and in reality they discovered many. The want of riches in these parts scarcely allowed a miserable spot to be assigned to them in the geographical maps, at the same time that all the ignorant, and many of the learned, spoke with enthusiasm of Gran-Paititi, Gran-Quivira, Terra Firma, and the country of the Amazons, in consequence of the gold which was ascribed to them, notwithstanding one of the most celebrated of the national writers, had demonstrated that the opulence of all these kingdoms was imaginary. The zeal for the propagation of the gospel, the spirit of quest,