SEARCH FOR A MIRACULOUS FOUNTAIN. 



north, there existed a land abounding in gold and in all manner of delights ; but, above all, 

 possessing a river of such wonderful virtue, that whoever bathed in it would be restored to 

 youth ! They added that in times past, before the arrival of the Spaniards, a large party of 

 the natives of Cuba had departed northward in search of this happy land and this river of life, 

 and, having never returned, it was concluded that they were flourishing in renewed youth, 

 detained by the pleasures of that enchanting country." Others told him that in a certain 

 island of the Bahamas, called Bimini, there was a fountain possessing the same marvellous and 

 inestimable qualities, and that whoever drank from it would secure perennial youth. Juan 

 Ponce listened to these fables with credulity, and actually fitted out three vessels at his own 

 expense to prosecute the discovery, and obtained numerous volunteers to assist him. " It may 

 seem incredible/' says Irving, " at the present day, that a man of years and experience could 

 yield any faith to a story which resembles the wild fiction of an Arabian tale ; but the wonders 

 and novelties breaking upon the world in that age of discovery almost realised the illusions of 

 fable, and the imaginations of the Spanish voyagers had become so heated that they were 

 capable of any stretch of credulity/' A similar statement was made by an eminent man of 

 learning, Peter Martyr, to Leo X., then Bishop of Rome. Juan Ponce left Porto Rico on the 

 3rd March, 1512, for the Bahama Islands, on his search for the Fountain of Youth, but all his 

 inquiries and explorations failed in its discovery. Still he persevered, and was rewarded in 

 discovering on the mainland a country in the fresh bloom of spring, the trees gay with blossoms 

 and abounding with flowers. He took possession of it in the name of the Castilian sovereigns, 

 and gave it the name of Florida, which it still retains. He subsequently discovered a group of 

 islands, where his sailors, in the course of one night, caught one hundred and seventy turtles. 

 He appropriately named them the Tortugas, or Turtles, the title they also still bear. Dis- 

 heartened by the failure of his special mission, he gave up the command to a trusty captain, 

 and returned to Porto Rico, " where he arrived infinitely poorer in purse and wrinkled in brow, 

 by this cruise after inexhaustible riches and perpetual youth." His captain arrived soon after 

 with the news that he had discovered the island of Bimini, and that it abounded in crystal 

 springs and limpid streams, which kept the island ever fresh and verdant ; ' ' but none that could 

 restore to an old man the vernal greenness of his youth." As late as 1521 we find old Juan 

 Ponce engaged in a new expedition to Florida, where, in an encounter with the Indians, he was 

 fatally wounded by an arrow. He retired to Cuba, where he died shortly afterwards. The 

 Spaniards said of him that he was a lion by name, and still more by nature. 



The name of Magellan, or Magalhaens, is more familiar to the general reader than some of 

 those which have preceded it in this chapter. He was a Portuguese of noble birth, and had 

 served honourably in India. "When he made the offer of his services to his own sovereign, 

 there is no doubt that the undertaking he proposed viz., to determine the question whether 

 the shores of South America were washed by an open sea had been mooted before. To him 

 however, belongs the credit of having brought that question to an issue. His own king would 

 have nought to do with his project, and dismissed him with a frown. Magellan, accompanied 

 "by Ruy Falero, an astrologer (the astrologers were in part the astronomers of those days), who 

 was associated with him in the enterprise, next made his proposals to the Spanish Emperor, 

 Charles V., by whom he Avas received with attention and respect. Articles of agreement were 

 drawn up, to this effect : the navigator agreed to rca?h the Moluccas by sailing to the west ; 



