But Columbus found something better than what he himself or his successors and imitators looked for. He had discovered a land which, besides eclipsing India in the richness and variety of its commerce, was to confer on Europe a still more solid benefit. Colonization, which, since the early ages of Greece, had slumbered for 2000 years, re ceived an impetus which, after building up empires in the west, was to build up others in an cast richer far than that which was so long the loadstar of European navigators— au east where, almost without a metaphor, the grass was to be wool, and the stones to be gold.
The first fruits of Columbus's enterprise were the Bahamas, Watling's island probably being the spot where he landed on the 11th of Oct., 1492. Without attempting, in so summary a sketch as this, to distinguish the results of each of his four voyages from each other, it may be sufficient to state that this great man, besides Hispaniola, or St. Domingo, Cuba, Jamaica, and others of the Antilles, discovered and explored Central A. from Honduras southward along the coast of Veragua, and South A. from the mouths of the Orinoco westward, as far as Margarita. It was on this last-mentioned scene of his operations that he was followed by flojeda, whose pilot, Amerigo Vespucci (q.v.), has been allowed to wrest from Columbus the glory of giving his name to the new world. Within twenty years after Columbus's first discovery, Ponce de Leon discovered Florida ; and, what was certainly of far more consequence, he ascertained that, through the strait which separated that peninsula from the Bahamas, there constantly ran a strong current to the n.e. In 1513, again, just one year later, Vasco Nunez de Balboa crossed the isth mus of Darien to the Great South sea, or, as it was afterwards named, the Pacific ocean. About thirteen years before this last event, almost immediately after Columbus's own continental explorations, the interval left between his most southerly point from Hon duras, and his most westerly point from the Orinoco, was, in a great measure, filled up by the voyage of Bastidas. To the s., again, of the Orinoco, Pinzon and Solis sailed along the continent down to 40° s. lat., between the years 1500 and 1514. The former, after anticipating, by a few months, the Portuguese on the shores of Brazil, had seen the Amazon; and the latter, sent out for the express purpose of entering, if possible, Bal boa's Great South sea, found his way into the La Plata or Plate, being there slain by the neighboring natives. Moreover, to return to the northward, by the year 1519, different navigators had between them completed the examination of the gulf of Mexico. Within twenty-seven years, therefore, after Columbus's first departure from Spain, the eastern shores of South and Central A., had been almost continuously explored by the Spaniards down to within 15' of the southern extremity of the continent.
Nor had other nations been idle in the n. The Cabots, on behalf of England, had dis covered Newfoundland, and portions of the adjacent continent, in 1497. In 1500, the Portuguese, under the Cortereali, sailed along the coast of Labrador nearly up to Hud son's bay, having, it is supposed, entered the gulf of St. Lawrence, long known among them as the gulf of the Two Brothers. Thus gradually there grew up the opinion, since proved to have been the true and sound one, that any practicable passage between the two oceans must be looked for towards the s. of the Plate. Accordingly, in 1519, Magel lan, a Portuguese in the service of Spain, undertook the voyage in which was discovered the strait that bears his name—a voyage which furnished the first instance of the cir cumnavigation of the globe. Thus there remained little to be done, unless in the ex treme 11. and the extreme s. In the extreme s., Schouten, a Dutch navigator, discovered, in 1610, the passage round cape Horn; while, six years thereafter, Lemaire, a mariner of the same nation, passed through the strait of his own name between Staten Land and Terra del Fuego. Towards the n., again, the French and English divided the labors and honors of the enterprise between them. Scarcely had Magellan's companions—for he had himself been killed—returned to Europe, when Vexazzano, under the auspices of Francis I. of France, sailed along what are now the Atlantic shores of the United States, thereby connecting the discoveries of the Cabots with those of Ponce de Leon: and again, about ten years later, Jacques Cartier, in the service also of the same prince, ex plored the gulf and river of St. Lawrence, penetrating as far to the westward as the island of Montreal. In the extreme n., however, the English may be said to Kaye been without a rival. It is unnecessary, in this summary sketch, to do more than mention names which tell their own story on every map—Davis, Baffin, Lancaster, and Hudson. (See these heads.) To pass now to the western coast of A. The conquerors of Mexico and Peru effected, in a few years, more perhaps than they left behind them for future ages to effect, rang ing along the coast from the southern extremity of Chili to the peninsula and gulf of California. Beyond lower California, the only direction in which there was much to do, the English Drake, whose voyage took place in 1578, divided with the Spaniards the credit of having discovered upper California. For nearly two centuries, excepting the half-fabulous voyages of Fonte and Fuca, the Spaniards and the English alike slumbered over their task; and it was not until towards the close of the last century, that Cook and Vancouver co-operated with Spanish and American navigators in dispelling the mystery that had so long hung over the n.w. coast of A.