the glory of the human race; they would make it up by artificial
communication. What, indeed, was that for men like them? It were done
at a word. Nothing else was left for them to conquer, and the world was
becoming too small for them."

Certainly, had Spain remained what she then was, what had been in vain
sought from nature would have been supplied by man. A canal or several
canals would have been built to take the place of the long-desired
strait. Her men of science urged it. In 1551, Gomara, the author of the
"History of the Indies," proposed the union of the oceans by three of
the very same lines toward which, to this hour, the eye turns with hope.

"It is true," said Gomara, "that mountains obstruct these passes, but if
there are mountains there are also hands; let but the resolve be made,
there will be no want of means; the Indies, to which the passage will
be made, will supply them. To a king of Spain, with the wealth of the
Indies at his command, when the object to be obtained is the spice
trade, what is possible is easy.

But the sacred fire suddenly burned itself out in Spain. The peninsula
had for its ruler a prince who sought his glory in smothering free
thought among his own people, and in wasting his immense resources in
vain efforts to repress it also outside of his own dominions through all
Europe. From that hour, Spain became benumbed and estranged from all
the advances of science and art, by means of which other nations, and
especially England, developed their true greatness.

Even after France had shown, by her canal of the south, that boats could
ascend and pass the mountain crests, it does not appear that the
Spanish government seriously wished to avail itself of a like means of