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; 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 surprizing 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 Hispaniola, 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.[2] 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 30 degrees and 8
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 further explorations, he retraced his
course to Porto Rico.

Ponce de Leon had not regained his youth, but his active spirit was