ENGLISH, FRENCH, AND SPANISH

tween the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean Sea, as he called it was only a few miles.

29

or South

The next step of the Spaniards was to send out Magellan, a Portuguese sea captain, to seek a passage farther south (map, pages 36, 37). In 1519 he set sail with five small vessels and touched at the harbor of Rio de Janeiro, where he first tasted pineapples, sugar cane, and sweet potatoes. He then entered the mouth of the Plata River. Proceeding down the coast, he discovered a passage which wound westward among snow-clad mountains, and which is now called the Strait of Magellan.

It took great courage to push into these unknown waters and to reach the Pacific Ocean. Magellan sailed northwestward, the first white voyager in the Pacific Ocean, until he reached land at the Ladrone Islands. Then he came upon a large group of islands which were afterwards called the Philippines, for King Philip of Spain. Magellan was killed by the natives there, but one of his vessels kept on around the Cape of Good Hope, and after three years' absence returned to Spain loaded with valuable spices. In the end Spain held the Philippine Islands, though strictly they were in the region intended for Portugal by the demarcation agreement.

15. The Interior of North America. About thirty years after the first discovery of America the Spaniards began to plant colonies on the continent of North America. Up to that time they knew nothing of the interior except what they could gather from the Indians, whose languages they did not understand. It interests us to know what sort of land they discovered, for they explored parts of the region that is now the United States.

The Spaniards knew that there were splendid harbors all along the Atlantic coast, and rivers which must come down from higher country inland. They did not realize that there was a spine of mountains which we now call the Appalachians, behind which there was a magnificent system of rivers and lakes; or that far to the west rose the majestic mountain chains which later came to be called the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. They did not guess that in the interior were great deposits of iron, copper, lead, zinc, gold,

silver, salt, sulphur, and mercury; stone and marble for building; clay for brick and pottery; coal for fuel; oil and natural gas for fuel and light.

When they came to explore the interior, they found it covered with endless woods, which in the far Northwest and Southwest stretched beyond the Mississippi. These thick woods were due to the abundant rainfall which has made the

castern United States so rich; for rain causes good crops. The climate of the region is, we now know, very favorable to farming. The snow of the northern winters helps some crops, especially wheat, and makes abundant grass and hay for animals. In the South it is warm enough for cotton and for such fruits as the orange and lemon. America is the native land of the potato, Indian corn, and tobacco; and in one or another part of the country the farmers can raise wheat, rye, oats, barley, buckwheat, rice, and other grains; apples, peaches, cherries, strawberries, and many other fruits; sweet potatoes, squashes, beets, and other vegetables; grass, alfalfa, and other forage crops for horses and cattle; flax for linseed oil, hemp for cloth and cordage, cotton for clothing; even olives, dates, and sugar cane. The woods furnish timber for houses,

ships, bridges, fences, and other uses.

In the early days many animals roamed through the forests and over the prairies. Of these the most valuable for their skins or furs were the bear,

the fox, the beaver,

the deer, and the buffalo.

16. The Native In

coming of the Europeans the only people in America were the natives whom we call Indians. Their skins were brown or coppercolored, but they were often called "red men" because many of them covered their faces with red paint. Nobody knows when or how their ancestors reached America. Some of them must have lived here thousands of years ago, when the mastodons were still roaming the plains, for tablets have been found in Iowa, scratched with rude pictures of those beasts. In Mexico and Peru there are ruins of stone buildings wonderfully carved, dating back nobody knows how far; and some of these buildings are very like certain temples and palaces in southern Asia. Still, if any wanderers came from other continents, the tradition of them was lost ages ago.

A beaver family. In the early days the beaver skin was the standard by which the settlers valued guns, clothing, and other furs. Beaver fur was an important export of this country

The native Indians were divided into many nations or tribes, large and small, which were like great families. The land that they tilled and their hunting grounds belonged to the whole tribe, and not to the members. The various tribes spoke many different languages, none of them like any tongue known in the Old World.

In the region that is now called the United States, most of the Indians were savages. They had no domestic animals. except dogs; but horses and cattle were brought over later from Europe. Some of the tribes wandered from place to place and lived chiefly by hunting and fishing. Others, such as the Cherokees and the Navahos, were settled in villages and raised corn and vegetables for food. The Pueblo Indians, in the southwestern part of the country, built curious houses of sun-dried clay, like vast, rude apartment houses; each house stood by itself, and was the home of a whole village.

Large mounds of various shapes, such as animals, temples, and forts, were found widely scattered over the western country, and it is supposed that they were built by ancestors of the present Indians. In many parts of the country can still be traced "Indian trails," which were paths tramped down into the soil by bands of men following one another in single file, year after year.

The tribes had chiefs or headmen, whom they hardly felt obliged to obey. Not even in the more civilized regions of Mexico and Peru was there what we should call a regular government, with laws, taxes, and protection for life and property. The Indians made few inventions, and had no religion except heathen rites. Most of them were fierce and cruel, and little wars between the tribes were going on much of the time. They proved to be dangerous enemies to the whites.

17. Spanish Colonies on the Continent (1521-1533). — Soon after the death of Columbus the Spaniards learned that there was a populous country to the westward which was called Mexico; so Hernando Cortes, with about 500 Spanish soldiers, marched into the land, found a quantity of gold, killed thousands of natives, robbed them of their treasures, and set up a permanent colony called New Spain or Mexico (1521). Twelve years later Francisco Pizarro broke up the similar nation of the Incas, an Indian tribe in South America, seized an immense quantity of gold, and founded the Spanish colony of Peru.

These and other colonies were settled by " conquistadores":