THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 271 



Emperor Charles urging, in a letter to Hernando Cortes, 

 the discovery of a passage " which should shorten the dis- 

 tance to the spice lands by two-thirds/' The expedition of 

 Alvaro de Saavedra was sent from a harbour of the province 

 of Zacatula on the west coast of Mexico, to the Moluccas ; 

 and in 1527, Hernando Cortes wrote, from the newly 

 conquered Mexican capital of Tenochtilan, "to the kings 

 of Zebu and Tidor in the Asiatic Archipelago." So rapid 

 was the enlargement of the geographical horizon, and with 

 it the desire for an extensive and animated intercourse with 

 remote nations. 



Subsequently the conqueror of New Spain went himself 

 in search of discoveries in the Pacific, and of a north-eastern 

 passage from thence to Europe. Men could not accustom 

 themselves to the idea that the continent really extended 

 uninterruptedly from such high southern to high northern 

 latitudes. When the report came from the coast of 

 California that the expedition of Cortes had perished, the 

 wife of the great warrior, Juana de Zuniga, the beautiful 

 daughter of the Conde de Aguilar, had two ships prepared 

 in order to seek for more certain tidings. ( 424 ) In 1541 

 California was already known as an arid peninsula without 

 wood, although this was again forgotten in the 1 7th century. 

 We can discover in the accounts which we now possess of 

 Balboa, Pedrarias Davila, and Hernando Cortes, that at that 

 period men hoped to discover in the South Sea, as a part of 

 the Indian ocean, groups of " islands rich in gold, precious 

 stones, spices, and pearls." Excited fancy impelled men to 

 great enterprizes; and the hardihood of these, whether 

 successful or unfortunate, reacted on the imagination and 

 inflamed it still more powerfully. Thus, at this extraordinary 



