In 1512 Juan Ponce de Leon is led by his evil star to Florida, where, instead of finding as he hoped the fountain of eternal youth, he is doomed to a miserable end; and in 1517 the above-mentioned Solis sails along the coasts of the Brazils to the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, where he is killed in a conflict with the Indians. In 1518 Cordova makes his countrymen acquainted with the north and west coasts of Yucatan, and in the same year Grijalva discovers the Mexican coast from Tabasco to San Juan de Ulloa. In 1518 he is followed by the great Cortez, who lands at Vera Cruz, overthrows the empire of Montezuma after a series of exploits unparalleled in history, and renders the whole coast of Mexico far to the north subject to the Spanish crown.
The voyages of Verazzani (1523) who sailed along the coast of the United States, and of Jacques Cartier (1524) who investigated the Bay of St. Lawrence, did not indeed widely extend geographical knowledge, as these navigators, who had been sent out by Francis I., did no more than examine more closely the previous discoveries of Cabot and Cortereal; their explorations however had the result of giving France possession of Canada, and of entitling her to a share in the fisheries of Newfoundland. Thus within half a century after the ever memorable day when Columbus first landed on Guanahani, we find almost the whole eastern coast of America rising into light from the deep darkness of an unknown past.
But while the western shores of the Atlantic were thus unrolling themselves before the wondering gaze of mankind, the Indian Ocean was the scene of no less remarkable events; for in the same year (1498) that Columbus first visited the American continent, Vasco de Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope, which thus fully justified its auspicious name, crossed the Eastern Ocean, and on the 22nd of May landed at Calicut on the coast of Malabar, ten months and two days after leaving the port of Lisbon.
And now, as if by magic, the great revolution in commerce took place which the Venetians long had feared and the Portuguese had no less anxiously hoped for; for the latter lost no time in reaping the golden fruits of the glorious discoveries of Gama and his predecessors. In less than twenty years their flag waved in all the harbours of the Indian Ocean, from the east coast of Africa to Canton; and over this whole immense expanse a row of fortified stations secured to them the dominion of the seas. Their settlements in Diu and Goa awed the whole coast of Malabar, and cut off the intercourse of Egypt with India by way of the Red Sea. They took possession of the small island of Ormus, which commands the entrance of the Persian Gulf, and rendered this important commercial highway likewise tributary to their power. In the centre of the East-Indian world rose their chief emporium, Malacca, and even in distant China Macao obeyed their laws. The discovery of the Molucca Islands gave them the monopoly of the lucrative spice trade, which was destined at a later period, and more permanently, to enrich the thrifty Dutchman.
What vast changes had taken place since Prince Henry's first expeditions to the coast of Africa! How had old Ocean enlarged his bounds! He who as a child had still known the earth with her old and narrow confines might, before his hair grew white, have seen the Atlantic assume a definite form; Africa project like an enormous peninsula into the boundless world of waters, and one single ocean bathe all the coasts from Canton to the West Indies.
Yet a few years and the Pacific opens its gates, and all the discoveries of Columbus and Vasco seem small when compared with the vast regions which Magellan reveals to man.
[CHAP. XXV.]
Vasco Nuñez de Balboa.—His Discovery of the Pacific, and subsequent Fate.—Ferdinand Magellan.—Sebastian el Cano, the first Circumnavigator of the Globe.—Discoveries of Pizarro and Cortez.—Urdaneta.—Juan Fernandez.—Mendoza.—Drake.—Discoveries of the Portuguese and Dutch in the Western Pacific.—Attempts of the Dutch and English to discover North-East and North-West Passages to India.—Sir Hugh Willoughby and Chancellor.—Frobisher.—Davis.—Barentz.—His Wintering in Nova Zembla.—Quiros.—Torres.—Schouten.—Le Maire.—Abel Tasman.—Hudson.—Baffin.—Dampier.—Anson.—Byron.—Wallis and Carteret.—Bougainville.