Project Gutenberg's The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2), by John Fiske

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2)
with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest

Author: John Fiske

Release Date: November 13, 2008 [EBook #27253]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA ***

Produced by Christine P. Travers and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all
other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has
been maintained.

Unusual superscripts are shown as ^{xx}, e.g.: w^{ch} for which.

Description of the characters not found in the Unicode tables:

[=a] a with macron.
[=e] e with macron.
[=i] i with macron.
[=o] o with macron.
[=u] u with macron.
[)i] i with breve.
[-p] p with stroke.
[~m] m with tilde.
[~p] p with tilde.
[~q] q with tilde.
[=z] ezh.
[ deg.u] u with ring.]

THE

DISCOVERY OF AMERICA

_WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF ANCIENT AMERICA AND THE SPANISH CONQUEST_

BY

JOHN FISKE

_IN TWO VOLUMES_

VOL. I.

Then I unbar the doors; my paths lead out
The exodus of nations; I disperse
Men to all shores that front the hoary main.
I too have arts and sorceries;
Illusion dwells forever with the wave.
I make some coast alluring, some lone isle
To distant men, who must go there or die.
EMERSON

[Illustration: Editor's arm.]

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1897

Copyright, 1892, By JOHN FISKE.

_All rights reserved._

SIXTEENTH THOUSAND.

_The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.

TO

EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN,

A SCHOLAR WHO INHERITS THE GIFT OF MIDAS, AND
TURNS INTO GOLD WHATEVER SUBJECT HE
TOUCHES, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK, WITH
GRATITUDE FOR ALL THAT HE
HAS TAUGHT ME

PREFACE.

The present work is