think that they would have a great weight with any lover in our time.

When Ferdinand reached his native land, he found that his arbitrary and relentless patron had died, and that he had left but a small portion to Isabella. The young hero was therefore proud to offer with his heart sufficient wealth to reirstate the lady in the social station she had occupied in her father's life. It must have been a proud moment for Ferdinand. He had left home a poor boy of nineteen, under the displeasure of a powerful patron, and now he returned a great conqueror, under the smiles of the proud emperor Charles the Fifth, who showered honors upon him and was ready to grant his largest request. Such was the nature of the changes that came over the lives of adventurers in those days, and it is not a wonder that exaggerated stories were told of the wealth and wonders of a country where such things were possible.

I think that few people believed that Pizarro had been the real conqueror of Peru. They knew too well his low birth and wretched char

acter, and felt that but for the skill and bravery of De Soto the expedition could not have turned out a success. We may hope that they gave the young knight credit for his abhorrence of the dastardly deeds of the campaign.

For some years Ferdinand and Isabella lived in splendor among the grandees of Spain, but even their large fortune was not sufficient to bear the heavy drafts that this life demanded, and after a time Ferdinand found that it was necessary to enter upon a new scheme to fill his coffers. It happened that in the year 1536 there returned to Spain one Cabeza de Vaca, who had led an expedition in America. He had visited the interior of the continent, and as there was no one to expose the untruthfulness of his statements, he related the most astonishing tales of the wealth and magnificence of the places he had visited. The easily excited imagination of his countrymen was stimulated to the utmost, and De Soto saw that the opportunity that he needed had come to him. He proposed to the great emperor Charles, then the most powerful ruler in Europe, to take

command of an expedition to conquer the land

of "Florida for him.

Florida was a name

vaguely applied to a region in America of indefinite extent, supposed to be of immense wealth, besides possessing the Fountain of Youth which would restore strength and vigor to the aged.

The stories of this land stirred Spain deeply, but the feeling became greater and greater when it was known that the emperor had authorized De Soto to lead to the New World the greatest expedi tion that Spain had ever fitted out. Words cannot tell what enthusiasm was aroused, nor with what zeal the people rushed to claim the honor of sailing for the El Dorado, or Land of Gold, as it was called. You have read of the Crusades, and remember how all Europe followed Peter the Hermit when he preached for volunteers in the beginning of the movement. The uprising in Spain at this time has seemed to historians to resemble that one. Not only did adventurers who coveted gold and honors see an opportunity here, but the religious mind. was touched by the stories told of the heathenism of the people of Florida, and ecclesiastics saw an

opportunity to do something to bring converts into the Church, and thus increase the power of the Pope. It was the custom of the early explorers of America to say that they intended to convert the people of the countries he should visit to the true religion, that is, to their own religion, which was the religion of the Church of Rome. Columbus set the fashion, and all seem to have followed him. It is an honor to set a good fashion, and we must give Columbus credit for this one, though we cannot admire the methods he and his successors adopted to carry out their good intentions.

When the expedition was ready to sail, in the spring of 1538, it comprised priests stimulated by the religious zeal of which I have spoken; highborn hidalgos of Portugal, who longed for adventure under the direction of a leader so successful as Ferdinand; cavaliers of Spain, some of whom had sold their possessions to defray the cost of their outfits, and a crowd of minor worthies, each of whom might, I am sure, have told an interesting story of the reasons that had led him to volunteer. Nor were the men alone. One wife accompanied

her husband because, forsooth, he had invested his all in the expedition and could not leave anything behind for household expenses during her solitariness. The fair Donna Isabella was drawn by the strong cords of the mutual love that had so long filled her heart. Seldom if ever before had women accompanied men on an enterprise of this kind, and it was a good sign that they went now, though the fact did not preserve the expedition from a dark fate.

On a bright April day, in 1539, amid the booming of great guns and the plaudits of admiring crowds, the fleet gayly set its sails and left the shores of Spain behind as it pushed out into the little known ocean. It was almost the end of May when Cuba was reached, and at Santiago, the capital, the fleet was welcomed with the same tokens of rejoicing that had marked the departure from home. Havana was visited, and there Ferdinand made his arrangements to leave Isabella as governor while he continued to the destination on the mainland. Ferdinand did not seem to be very desirous to leave his young wife, for he occupied