which, strangely enough, he affirmed before setting out, that he "would
enter," since he "had seen them marked out on the geographer Martin
Behaim's globe." For this, Cortez sent out his expeditions on both
coasts, exposing his own life and treasure, and sending home to the
emperor, in his second relation, a map of the entire Gulf of Mexico
(Dispatch from Cortez to Charles V., October 15, 1524). For this great
purpose, and in full expectancy of success in it, the whole coast of
the New World on each side, from Newfoundland on the northeast, curving
westward on the south, around the whole sweep of the Gulf of Mexico,
thence to Magellan's Straits, and thence through them up the Pacific to
the Straits of Behring, was searched and researched with diligence.
"Men could not get accustomed," says Humboldt, "to the idea that the
continent extended uninterruptedly both so far north and south." Hence
all these large, numerous, and persevering expeditions by the European
powers.

Among them, by priority of right and by her energy, was Spain. The great
emperor was urgent on the conqueror of Mexico, and on all in subordinate
positions in New Spain, to solve the secret of the strait. All Spain was
awakened to it. "How majestic and fair was she," says Chevalier, "in the
sixteenth century; what daring, what heroism and perseverance! Never had
the world seen such energy, activity, or good fortune. Hers was a will
that regarded no obstacles. Neither rivers, deserts, nor mountains far
higher than those in Europe, arrested her people. They built grand
cities, they drew their fleets, as in a twinkling of the eye, from the
very forests. A handful of men conquered empires. They seemed a race of
giants or demi-gods. One would have supposed that all the work necessary
to bind together climates and oceans would have been done at the word of
the Spaniards as by enchantment, and since nature had not left a passage
through the center of America, no matter, so much the better for