Our New England climate is mild and equable compared with that of the Platte.

The Spanish voyager, as his caravel ploughed the adjacent seas, might give full scope to his imagination, and dream that beyond the long, low margin of forest which bounded his horizon lay hid a rich harvest for some future conqueror; perhaps a second Mexico with its royal palace and sacred pyramids, or another Cuzco with its temple of the Sun, encircled with a frieze of gold. Haunted by such visions, the ocean chivalry of Spain could not long stand idle.

America was still a land of wonder. The ancient spell still hung unbroken over the wild, vast world of mystery beyond the sea,-a land of romance, adventure, and gold.

If any pale student, glued to his desk, here seek an apology for a way of life whose natural fruits is that pallid and emasculate scholarship of which New England has had too many examples, it will be far better that this sketch had not been written. For the student there is, in its season, no better place than the saddle, and no better companion than the rifle or the oar.

America, when it became known to Europeans, was, as it had long been, a scene of wide-spread revolution.

In the middle of the sixteenth century, Spain was the incubus of Europe. Gloomy and portentous, she chilled the world with her baneful shadow.

Humanity, morality, decency, might be forgotten, but codfish must still be had for the use of the faithful in Lent and on fast days.