THE TREASURE REVEALED 211 



Church — but the Church always subservient to the Spanish 

 State — now moved in on the new settlements with dogma 

 and law to try and establish a rigid absentee control. It can 

 conveniently be stated that after Magellan in 1520 rounded 

 South America and one of his ships complete the circumnavi- 

 gation of the world, the day of the great professional explorers 

 was soon to be superseded by the day of the politician, as far 

 as Spain was concerned. She had found the jackpot and 

 Cathay could wait. 



But when Columbus first came back in 1493 to announce 

 his great discovery there was no talk then of a New World. 

 He beheved, as did others, that he had come to the Indies of 

 the Far East by way of the west, and that the challenge of 

 Turkish control of the trade routes to China had been met. 

 He returned on his second voyage to develop and push further 

 discovery of the wealth of the Indies. 



Columbus was now Admiral of the Ocean Sea, but with all 

 his honors and titles the discoverer of the Indies could not 

 keep an exclusive preserve. The year after he returned the 

 second time to tell of Jamaica and the northern coasts of Haiti 

 and of Cuba, which he regarded as the mainland, another 

 expedition set out from Spain headed by Columbus' former 

 captain, Pinzon, and two other pilots and navigators of good 

 standing, Sohs and Vespucius. In 1497-98 these men coursed 

 along the shores of Honduras, made a close study of the 

 Florida coasts, and before heading east to the Bermudas quite 

 possibly may have cruised north along the American conti- 

 nental shores as far as Hatteras. This seems likely from the 

 evidence of Cantino's map of 1 502, which probably was based 

 on this first voyage of Amerigo Vespucius. Meanwhile Vasco 

 da Gama for the Portuguese was at this very time rounding 

 the Cape of Good Hope to India — a voyage that would add 

 tremendous stimulus to the Spanish search west for a short 

 cut of their own to Indian ports. 



