was required for the search. At the expiration of these, Kowsoter called at his lodge, and informed him that he would bring his bride to him in the course of the afternoon. He kept his word; at the appointed time he approached leading the bride, a comely copper-colored dame attired in her Indian finery. Her father, mother, brothers by the half-dozen, and cousins by the score, all followed on to grace the ceremony and greet the new and important relative.

The trapper received his new and numerous family connections with proper solemnity; he placed his bride beside him, and, filling the pipe, the great symbol of peace, with his best tobacco, took two or three whiffs, then handed it to the chief, who transferred it to the father of the bride, from whom it was passed on from hand to hand and mouth to mouth of the whole circle of kinsmen round the fire, all maintaining the most profound and becoming silence. After several pipes had been filled and emptied in this solemn ceremonial, the chief addressed the bride, detailing at considerable length the duties of a wife, which, among Indians, are little less onerous than those of the packhorse; this done, he turned to her friends and congratulated them on the great alliance she had made. They showed a due sense of their good fortune, especially when the nuptial presents came to be distributed among the chiefs and relatives, amounting to about one hundred and eighty dollars. The company soon retired.

Now the worthy trapper found out, indeed, that he had no green girl to deal with; for the knowing dame at once. assumed the style and dignity of a trapper's wife; taking possession of the lodge as her undisputed empire, arranging everything according to her own taste and habits, and appearing as much at home and upon as easy terms with the trapper as if they had been man and wife for years.

No sooner does an Indian belle experience the promotion of a free trapper's wife, than all her notions at once rise and expand to the dignity of her situation; and the purse of her lover, and his credit, are tasked to the utmost to fit

her out in becoming style. The wife of a free trapper to be equipped and arrayed like an ordinary and undistinguished squaw? Perish the groveling thought!

In the first place, she must have a horse for her own riding; but no jaded, sorry, earth-spirited hack; such as is sometimes assigned by an Indian husband for the trans

portation of his squaw and her papooses. The wife of a free trapper must have the most beautiful animal she can lay her eyes on. And as to his decoration, head-stall, breast-bands, saddle and crupper, are each lavishly embroidered with beads and hung with thimbles, hawksbells and bunches of ribbons. From each side of the saddle

hangs an esquimoo, a sort of pocket, in which she bestows the residue of her trinkets and knicknacks, which can not be accommodated in the decorations of her horse or herself. Over this she folds, with great care, a drapery of scarlet and bright colored calicoes, and now considers the caparison of her steed complete.

As to her own person, she is still more extravagant. Her hair, esteemed beautiful in proportion to its length, . is carefully plaited, and made to fall with seeming negligence over either breast. Her riding hat is stuck full of partly colored feathers; her robe, fashioned somewhat after that of the whites, is of red, green, and sometimes gray cloth, but always of the finest texture that can be procured. Her leggins and moccasins are of the most beautiful and expensive workmanship, and fitted neatly to the foot and ankle, which with the Indian women are generally well formed and delicate.

Then as to jewelry, in the way of finger-rings, ear-rings, necklaces, and other female glory nothing within reach of the trapper's means is omitted that can tend to impress the beholder with an idea of the lady's high station.

To finish the whole she selects from among her blankets of various dyes, one of some glowing color, and throwing it over her shoulders with a native grace, vaults into the saddle of her gay, prancing steed, and is ready to follow her mountaineer to the last gasp with love and loyalty.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

PONCE DE LEON.

When King Solomon had finished the Temple, "Hiram, the King of Tyre, sent his servants in the fleet, sailors that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. And they come to Ophir and they brought from thence to King Solomon four hundred and twenty talents of gold." 3 Kings 9:27, 28.

From that day searchers for gold tried to find out this land rich in "gold and precious stones." As it took the united fleets of Solomon and Hiram three years to make the round trip, the country must naturally be at a distance. Some placed Ophir and Sapora in Western Africa, others in Eastern Asia, others again on some unknown island in an unknown ocean. The obscure allusions of Aristotle, Plato and Seneca to a country hid in the Western Ocean derive fresh importance from the discovery of the Canary Islands, Madeira and the Azores in the early part of the Fifteenth Century. Columbus himself was persuaded, that Ophir, the Eldorado of Solomon, and Mount Sapora were portions of Eastern Asia,- the Chersoneses Aurea of Ptolemy. In one of his letters dated Jamaica, 1503, he expresses his hope of reaching Ophir, and says: "The excellence and power of the gold of Ophir can not be described; he who possesses it, does what he will."

The great object held out by Columbus in his undertakings was the propagation of the Catholic faith, and the conversion of the Indians, a work dear to his heart. Having returned from his first voyage, the discoverer of the New World brought six Indians to the Court at Barcelona. After the necessary instruction they were baptized with

great ceremony, Queen Isabella with a holy joy performing the office of godmother for them. To the last day of her life, she took a maternal interest in the welfare and happiness of all the natives. "She ordered," says Washington Irving," that great care should be taken of the religious instructions of the Indians, that they should be treated with the utmost kindness, and enjoined Columbus to inflict signal punishment on all Spaniards who should be guilty of outrage or injustice toward them." On his second voyage Columbus was accompained by Father Bernhard Boile, from the Benedictine Monastery of Our Lady of Montserat, and twelve priests of his own choice. They commenced the work of religion by consecrating a chapel at Isabella in Hayti, on the Feast of the Epiphany of our Lord in the year 1494. But the great undertakings of Columbus were necessarily very expensive. In the contract made on the 17th of April, 1492, at Santa Fe in the Vega of Granada, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella granted him “to have a share amounting to a tenth part of the profits of all merchandise be it pearls, jewels, gold, silver, or any other thing — that may be found, gained, bought or exported from the countries which he is to discover.'

Every ship from the New World came freighted with marvels, which convinced the Spaniards of that day, that America was a region of wonder and mystery, of vague and magnificent promise. Thither adventurers hastened thirsting for glory and for gold. They roamed over land and sea; they climbed unknown mountains, surveyed unknown oceans, pierced the sultry intricacies of the tropical forests; while from year to year and from day to day new wonders were unfolded, new islands and archipelagoes, new regions of gold and pearl and barbaric empires of more than Oriental wealth. The extravagance of hope and the power of adventure knew no bounds. Nor is it surprising, that amid such waking marvels the imagination should run wild in romantic dreams; that between the possible and the impossible the line of distinction should be but faintly drawn and that men should be found ready