PLACE DE LA CROIX. 
A ROMANCE OF THE WEST. 
TuereE is much of beautiful romance in the whole his- 
tory of the early settlements of Florida. De Soto and 
Ponce de Leon have thrown around the records of their 
searches for gold and the waters of life, a kind of dreamy 
character which renders them more like traditions of a 
spiritual than of a real world. They and their followers 
were men of stern military discipline, who had won hon- 
ors in their conquests over the Moors; and they came 
hither not as emigrants, seeking an asylum from oppres- 
sion, but as proud nobles, anxious to add to their nu- 
merous laurels, by conquests in a new world. ‘The 
startling discoverics,—the fruits, the gold, and the na- 
tives that appeared with Columbus at the court of Isa- 
bella,—gave to fancy an impetus, and to enthusiasm a 
power, which called forth the pomp of the “ Infallible 
. 2 jo dee “3 
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