six days' travel westward would bring
them to the shores of a great sea, where gold was as plentiful as the
pebbles on the beach.

[Illustration: CARAVELS OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. (After an engraving
published in 1584.)]

DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC.

This information, as may be believed, set the Spaniards wild, and,
engaging a number of the natives as guides, they plunged into the hot,
steaming forests, and pressed on until one day they came to the base of
a mountain, from the top of which the guides said the great sea could be
seen. Balboa made his men stay where they were while he climbed to the
crest of the mountain alone. This was on the 26th of September, 1513,
and, as Balboa looked off to the westward, his eyes rested upon the
Pacific Ocean, the mightiest body of water on the globe.

He had made a grand discovery, and one which led to the conquest of
Mexico and Peru and the colonization of the western coast of our
country. Spain sent her armed expeditions thither, and in time they
overran the sections named, their footprints marked everywhere by fire
and blood. Many remains exist to-day in the Southwest of the early
visits of those rapacious adventurers, during the first half of the
sixteenth century. In Santa Fe, New Mexico, is a building made of adobe
or sun-dried clay which was built in 1582.

THE FIRST CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF THE GLOBE.

In 1519 Ferdinand Magellan coasted South America to the strait named in
his honor, and, passing through it, entered upon the vast body of water
discovered six years before by Balboa. Magellan gave it the name of
Pacific Ocean, and, sailing westward, discovered the Philippine Islands,
which have lately acquired such importance in our history. There
Magellan died. Several of his ships were lost, but one of them succeeded
in reaching Spain after an absence of two years. This was the first
circumnavigation of the globe and demonstrated the grandeur of the
discovery made by Columbus.

[Illustration: COLUMBUS AND THE EGG.

At a dinner the Spanish courtiers, jealous of Columbus, said anyone
could discover the Indies. When, at Columbus' request, they failed to
make an egg stand on its end, he showed them how to do it by flattening
the end of it. "Anyone could do that," remarked a courtier. "So anyone
can discover the Indies, after I have shown the way."]

One of the companions of Columbus on his second voyage was Ponce de
Leon. He was well on in years, and became deeply inte