PONCE DE LEON FRANCIS PARKMAN Copyright, 1897, by Little, Brown, and Company Francis Parkman was born in Boston in 1823. He graduated from Harvard in 1844. He traveled in the western prairies in order to become familiar with Indian life. He devoted his whole life to the writing of history. No other writer has told in so interesting and so clear a manner the story of the long struggle between France and England for the possession of North America. Pupils should be led to read Parkman's works. "The Conspiracy of Pontiac," "A Half Century of Conflict," "Montcalm and Wolfe," "The Old Règime in Canada," and "Pioneers of France in the New World" are all intensely interesting. This selection is from the last-named work. OWARD the close of the fifteenth century, Spain TOWAR achieved her final triumph over the infidels of Granada, and made her name glorious through all generations by the discovery of America. The religious zeal and romantic daring which a long course of Moorish wars had called forth were now exalted to redoubled fervor. Every ship from the New World came freighted with marvels which put the fictions of chivalry to shame; and to the Spaniard of that day America was a region of wonder and mystery, of vague and magnificent promise. Thither adventurers hastened, thirsting for glory and for gold, and often mingling the enthusiasm of the crusader and the valor of the knight-errant with the bigotry of inquisitors and the rapacity of pirates. They roamed over land and sea; they climbed unknown mountains, surveyed unknown oceans, pierced the sultry intricacies of tropical forests s; while from year to year and from day to day new wonders were unfolded, new islands and archipelagoes, new regions of gold and pearl, and barbaric empires of more than Oriental wealth. The extravagance of hope and the fever of adventure knew no bounds. Nor is it surprising that amid such waking marvels the imagination should run wild in romantic dreams; that between the possible and the impossible the line of distinction should be but faintly drawn, and that men should be found ready to stake life and honor in pursuit of the most insane fantasies. Such a man was the veteran cavalier Juan Ponce de Leon. Greedy of honors and of riches, he embarked at Porto Rico with three brigantines, bent on schemes of discovery. But that which gave the chief stimulus to his enterprise was a story, current among the Indians of Cuba and Hispianola, that on the Island of Bimini, said to be one of the Bahamas, there was a fountain of such virtue, that, bathing in its waters, old men resumed their youth. It was said, moreover, that on a neighboring shore might be found a river gifted with the same beneficent property and believed by some to be no other than the Jordan. Ponce de Leon found the island of Bimini, but not the fountain. Farther westward, in the latitude of thirty degrees and eight minutes, he approached an unknown land, which he named Florida, and steering southward, explored its coast as far as the extreme point of the peninsula, when, after some farther explorations, he retraced his course to Porto Rico. Ponce de Leon had not regained his youth, but his active spirit was unsubdued. Nine years later he attempted to plant a colony in Florida; the Indians attacked him fiercely; he was mortally wounded, and soon afterwards died in Cuba. THE BROOK ALFRED TENNYSON COME from haunts of coot1 and hern,2 I make a sudden sally, And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down the valley. Try to form a mental image of the stream described, and the various different pictures, presented by the author. Be sure to know the meaning of the words used. A little help is given you here. I wind about, and in and out, With here a blossom sailing, And here and there a foamy flake With many a silvery waterbreak 2 And draw them all along, and flow I steal by lawns and grassy plots, I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, I murmur under moon and stars 1 Grayling: A small fish. 2 What is meant by silvery waterbreak? I linger by my shingly bars, I loiter round my cresses. And out again I curve and flow To join the brimming river; For men may come and men may go, THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON JEAN RUDOLPH WYSS LANDING FROM THE WRECK AT length the faint dawn of day appeared, the long weary night was over, and with thankful hearts we perceived that the gale had begun to moderate; the blue sky was seen above us, and the lovely hues of sunrise adorned the eastern horizon. I aroused the boys, and we assembled on the remaining portion of the deck, where they, to their surprise, discovered that no one else was on board. 66 Are Hallo, papa! What has become of everybody? the sailors gone? Have they taken away the boats? Oh, papa! Why did they leave us behind? What can we do by ourselves?" 66 My good children," I replied, "we must not despair, although we seem deserted. See how those on whose skill and good faith we depended have left us cruelly to our fate in the hour of danger. God will never do so. He has not forsaken us, and we will trust Him still. let us bestir ourselves, and each cheerily do his best. Only Who has anything to propose?" |