ing explorer told a story more wonderful than the one who had been before him. Truth was equal to the tales of romance, and romance was no whit more wonderful than truth. Peter Martyr wrote to the Pope Leo X. of this spring, that it was of "such marvellous virtue, that the water thereof being drunk, perhaps with some diet, maketh old men young again." This he said on the authority of those who had 66 searched the same," though I fear he had not seen any who had actually drunk the water. He asked the Pope not to think this a rash rumor, for he said many who were noted for wisdom thought it true, and added that he did not attribute the power to nature, but believed that God had reserved it to himself, and exercised it as he did his other powers.

On the third of March, 1512, Juan sailed to find the Island of Bimini. He found the Bahamas, landed on the Island of San Salvador, where Columbus had first stepped on the Western shores, and inquired vainly for the Island of Bimini and the Fountain of Youth. He found neither, and off he sailed again. On a March Sunday, he thought he saw the island. Auspicious omen! it was Palm Sunday! The sea was

so rough, that for several days he could not land. He hovered about, with how much impatience we may imagine, and at last came to anchor. How the trees pleased his eyes, with their gay blossoms and green leaves! And the fields, what gorgeousness of flowers they bore! Day after day he searched for the fountain, but never could he find its refreshing waters. He had not discovered an island, but our continent, and the country he was in has always since borne the name he gave it, Florida. It is a land of oranges and flowers, but it is not the Mysterious Island of Bimini. That is yet to be discovered.

CHAPTER II.

THE BURIAL IN THE RIVER.

A

SI try to make real to my mind the stories

of long past history, there appears to me a crowd of men standing on the shores of the Old World, all gazing wistfully to the westward.

Age

Ever and anon one

after age they stand and look. drops out of the scene as time passes and years bring him to the end of his life, and now and then I see one, more adventurous than the others, push a frail vessel into the dashing surf, and disappear in the mists of the distance, determined to do what he can to solve the mystery of the sea.

Among the gazers walk those who carry in their hands books telling the stories of the travels of such as Marco Polo, and of others who give the weird traditions of the Island of St. Brandan. I see them, anxious to find the island and the giant,

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longing to see for themselves the wonders of Cipango, and stirred by the recital of the sufferings of those exiled Christians of Spain, who, frightened by the dreadful Moors, sought peace in the Island of the Seven Cities. Not a man had been over the Atlantic in those days, and no daring navigator had shown, by sailing round it, that the world is round. With his longing curiosity and active imagination one of these peering inquirers, like George Eliot's Jubal, climbs the highest mountain to get wide views, and it showed him

Nought but a wider earth; until one height
Showed him the ocean stretched in liquid light,
And he could hear its multitudinous roar,

Its plunge and hiss upon the pebbled shore.

The scene hushed him to silence.

He thought, "This world is great, but I am weak,

And where the sky bends is no solid peak

To give me footing, but instead, this main,

Like myriad maddening horses thundering o'er the plai

What a transporting mystery there is in he ocean even now, though men have ploughed its

trackless waves for ages, and have sailed through its remotest seas. As we cruise in our little boat along the shore of the most familiar bay or landlocked harbor, how do we not find ourselves peering intently around every irregularity in the shore line, and wondering if there may not have been some change in the appearance of this headland, or that inlet! Thus, even the most commonplace sheet of water is filled with interest, and what shall be said of the mystery of the sea in the eyes of those who, five hundred years and more ago, looked from the shores of Europe over the wide Atlantic? Can we fathom their feelings, or fancy their sentiments, even by the most energetic effort of an imagination trained to search for wonders? I think not.

Columbus was one of those early gazers, and the story of his great career is known to us all. In his early years he cherished a hope that some day the sea would open her mysteries to him, but the time was slow in coming. Year after year he carefully studied everything that he thought might throw light upon the subject of his