e Land
of the Seven Cities, from its seven bishoprics. When Coronado heard
of the pueblos of Arizona and New Mexico, he may have confounded
them with the towns of Oppas, and to this day the seven cities of
Cibola are a legend of our desert. Harold's Norsemen were told by
the wild Skraelings of Maine of a pale-faced people farther south,
who walked in processions, carrying white banners and chanting.

Near Florida was the island of Bimini, with its fountain of youth. Juan
and Luis Ponce de Leon sought it vainly among the Bahamas, then
crossed to Florida and kept up the search among the pine barrens,
the moss-bearded cypresses, the snaky swamps, and alligator infested
rivers. The Indians, strong, active, healthy with their simple,
outdoor life, their ignorance of wine and European diseases, seemed
so favored that the Spaniards believed they must have bathed in the
magic fountain and drank its waters. Green Cove Spring, near Magnolia,
is the one where Luis bathed, hoping that he had found at last the
restorative fountain; but an angry Indian shot a poisoned arrow through
his body, and neither prayers nor water stayed long the little life
that was in him. So the spring is in the unfound Bimini, after all.

The Buccaneers

How the free traders in the West Indies became smugglers, how by easy
stages they passed from the profession of illicit dealing to piracy,
are matters that concern history rather than legend. Their name of
buccaneers comes from buccan, an Indian word signifying a smoke-house,
in which beef and other meats were dried; as one of the earliest
enterprises of the rovers was the stealing of Spanish cattle in San
Domingo, and the drying of their flesh in the native buccans for use
at sea.

A general hatred or jealousy of Spain, that was shared by the English,
Dutch, and French, led to the first privateering expeditions. Indeed,
throughout the seventeenth century the pirates operated principally
against Spain, and were tolerated because of the injury they did to
her ships, her people, her property, and her trade. Having finally
ruined her commerce, they sacked her colonies, and, the lust for blood
and treasure having been roused to a sort of madness, they cast off
patriotic allegiances and became mere robbers and outlaws. The history
of the successes of L'Ollonois, Morgan, Davis, and the rest, is an
exciting though painful one, inasmuch as all sense of right and mercy
seems to have been crushed in t