210 THE OCEAN RIVER 



From here on the story of the Ocean River holds us in the 

 West Indies as the new frontier of European transatlantic 

 adventure. Down wind and down stream from the mouth of 

 the old Mediterranean world, the warm, surging waters of 

 the Caribbean foster a new kind of civilization for the white 

 races — the civilization of slave labor and single-crop agri- 

 culture on a colonial basis that even the Romans had failed 

 to equal. 



It is natural that the first flood of westward European ex- 

 plorations should have taken a southerly route, following the 

 lead of winds and waters rather than bucking the stormy head 

 winds of the North Atlantic. It is also natural that Mediter- 

 ranean people, once their fear of a southern hemisphere ablaze 

 with heat had been dispelled, would seek the Indies in the 

 land of sun. It follows that the nature and power of the Ocean 

 River of the Atlantic was slow to be revealed, since its form 

 and direction can be said to take obvious shape first at the 

 Straits of Florida. Historically speaking, however, the dis- 

 covery of the Caribbean waters and islands and the continent 

 of the west took place quickly after the first assay of Columbus, 

 although in a disorganized and fumbling manner. 



The rulers of Spain were not impressed by the fact that 

 Columbus came back from his succeeding voyages always ask- 

 ing for more men and vessels to push uncompleted discoveries. 

 A few pearls and golden ornaments were not enough. He had 

 not found, as he predicted, the great wealth of the kingdoms 

 of Cathay or Cypangu. But the professional explorers kept 

 enlarging the limits of the Caribbean world until Cortez in 

 Mexico and Pizarro in Peru laid bare the infinite plunder 

 waiting in those highly organized Indian kingdoms. Then at 

 last men and ships poured into the Caribbean to the main- 

 land, and in short order a few thousand tough soldiers and 

 impoverished noblemen established by cruel conquest the first 

 European colonial empire in the west. The State and the 



