once de Leon, a Spanish soldier
who was getting gray and wrinkled, set out to find this magic fountain,
for he thought that there was more fun in being a boy than in growing
old.

He did not find the fountain, and so his hair grew grayer than ever
and his wrinkles grew deeper. But in 1513 he discovered a land bright
with flowers, which he named Florida.[4] He took possession of it
for Spain.

The same year another Spaniard, named Balboa, set out to explore the
Isthmus of Panama.[5] One day he climbed to the top of a very high
hill, and discovered that vast ocean--the greatest of all the oceans
of the globe--which we call the Pacific.

[Footnote 1: Ponce de Leon (Pon'thay day La-on') or, in English, Pons
de Lee'on. Many persons now prefer the English pronunciation of all
these Spanish names.]

[Footnote 2: Balboa (Bal-bo'ah).]

[Footnote 3: De Soto (Da So'to).]

[Footnote 4: Florida: this word means flowery; the name was given
by the Spaniards because they discovered the country on Easter Sunday,
which they call Flowery Easter.]

[Footnote 5: Panama (Pan-a-mah').]

29. De Soto discovers the Mississippi.--Long after Balboa and Ponce
de Leon were dead, a Spaniard named De Soto landed in Florida and
marched through the country in search of gold mines.

In the course of his long and weary wanderings, he came to a river
more than a mile across. The Indians told him it was the Mississippi,
or the Great River. In discovering it, De Soto had found the largest
river in North America; he had also found his own grave, for he died
shortly after, and was secretly buried at midnight in its muddy
waters.

[Illustration: BURIAL OF DE SOTO.]

30. The Spaniards build St. Augustine;[6] we buy Florida in
1819.--More than twenty years after the burial of De Soto, a Spanish
soldier named Menendez[7] went to Florida and built a fort on the
eastern coast. This was in 1565. The fort became the centre of a
settlement named St. Augustine. It is the oldest city built by white
men, not only in what is now the United States, but in all North
America.

[Illustration: OLD SPANISH GATEWAY AT ST. AUGUSTINE. (Called the
"City Gate.")]

In 1819, or more than two hundred and fifty years after St. Augustine
was begun, Spain sold Florida to the United States.

[Footnote 6: St. Augustine (Sant Aw'gus-teen').]

[Footnote 7: Menendez (Ma-nen'deth).]

31. Summary.--Ponce de Leon discovered Florida; another Spaniard,
named Balboa, dis