The Land of Enchantment or the Search
for Gold and Adventure
All sorts of marvelous tales were told about the wealth and wonders of the New World.
It was said that somewhere in the New World there was a fountain of youth, and that if you bathed in it or drank of its water, you would become young again.
It was said that somewhere in the New World there was a city called El Dorado built of solid gold.
So every one who liked adventure and could get enough money together went off in search of these things that might make him famous or healthy, wealthy or wise, or forever young.
One of these men was Ponce de León. Ponce de León was looking for the fountain of youth. While searching for this life-giving water, he discovered Florida. But instead of finding the fountain of youth, he lost his life in fighting with the Indians.
Another one of these men was de Soto. He was searching for El Dorado, the city of gold. While doing so he discovered the longest river in the world—the Mississippi. But instead of finding El Dorado, de Soto was taken sick with fever and died. Now, the Spaniards, to make the Indians fear them, had said that de Soto was a god and could not die. So in order to cover up the fact that de Soto had actually died his men buried him at night in the river he had discovered. They then told the Indians that he had gone on a trip to heaven and would presently return.
The central part of America was called Mexico. Here lived at that time a tribe of Indians known as Aztecs. These Aztecs were more civilized than the other Indians that the explorers had come across. They did not live in tents but in houses. They built fine temples and palaces. They made roads and aqueducts, something like those of the Romans. They had enormous treasures of silver and gold. And yet the Aztecs worshiped idols and sacrificed human beings to them. Their king was a famous chief named Montezuma.
A Spaniard named Cortés was sent to conquer these Aztecs. He landed on the shore of Mexico and burned his ships so that his sailors and soldiers could not turn back. The Aztecs thought these white-faced people were gods who had come down from heaven and that their ships with their white sails were white-winged birds that had borne them. They had never seen horses, some of which the Spaniards had brought over across the water, and they were astonished at what seemed to them terrible beasts that the white men rode. When the Spaniards fired their cannons, the Aztecs were terrified. They thought it was thunder and lightning that the Spaniards had let loose.
Cortés moved on toward the Aztec capital, the City of Mexico, which was built on an island in the middle of a lake. The natives he met on the way fought desperately, but as they had only such weapons as men used in the Stone and Bronze Ages, they were no match against the guns and cannons of the Spaniards.