THE SEA AND THE DESEET. 
165 
eoast of Galicia, in Spain, whose capital is Santiago, 
though by old poets’ reckoning it should have been At¬ 
lantis or the Hesperides; but heaven is found to be far¬ 
ther west now. At first we were abreast of that part of 
Portugal entre Douro e Mino, and then Galicia and the 
port of Pontevedra opened to us as we walked along; 
but we did not enter, the breakers ran so high. The 
bold headland of Cape Finisterre, a little north of east, 
jutted toward us next, with its vain brag, for we flung 
back, — “ Here is Cape Cod, — Cape Land’s-Beginning.” 
A little indentation toward the north, — for the land 
loomed to our imaginations by a common mirage, — we 
knew was the Bay of Biscay, and we sang: 
“ There we lay, till next day, 
In the Bay of Biscay 01 ” 
A little south of east was Palos, where Columbus 
weighed anchor, and farther yet the pillars which Her¬ 
cules set up ; concerning which when we inquired at the 
top of our voices what was written on them, — for we 
had the morning sun in our faces, and could not see dis¬ 
tinctly,— the inhabitants shouted Ne plus ultra (no 
more beyond), but the wind bore to us the truth only, 
plus ultra (more beyond), and over the Bay westward 
was echoed uWa (beyond). We spoke to them through 
the surf about the Far West, the true Hesperia, eco Trepas 
or end of the day, the This Side Sundown, where the 
sun was extinguished in the Pacific^ and we advised 
them to pull up stakes and plant those pillars of theirs 
on the shore of California, whither all our folks were 
gone, — the only ne plus ultra now. Whereat they 
looked crestfallen on their cliffs, for we had taken the 
wind out of all their sails. 
