CONTENTS.


PAGE

PARLEY TELLS HOW AMERICA WAS FIRST DISCOVERED,
AND ABOUT COLUMBUS 1

PARLEY DESCRIBES THE INHABITANTS 12

COLUMBUS SETS SAIL TO RETURN TO SPAIN; ENCOUNTERS
A DREADFUL STORM 21

COLUMBUS PREPARES FOR ANOTHER VOYAGE 35

PARLEY TELLS HOW COLUMBUS DISCOVERED THE
CONTINENT OF AMERICA 45

PARLEY TELLS HOW COLUMBUS WAS ROBBED OF THE
HONOUR OF GIVING HIS NAME TO AMERICA 59

PARLEY TELLS HOW COLUMBUS WAS SHIPWRECKED,
AND OF HIS DEATH 65

PARLEY TELLS OF OVANDO'S CRUEL TREATMENT OF
ANACAONA, THE PRINCESS OF HAYTI 73

PARLEY DESCRIBES THE TREES, THE PLANTS, AND
FLOWERS OF THE NEW WORLD 79

PARLEY TELLS OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO 96

PARLEY RELATES HOW PIZARRO DISCOVERED AND
CONQUERED PERU 121

PARLEY DESCRIBES THE BEAUTIES OF AMERICA 133

PARLEY TELLS OF THE FIRST ENGLISH COLONY IN
AMERICA 141

PARLEY TELLS OF THE ORIGINAL NATIVE AMERICANS 150

PARLEY SHOWS HOW THE UNITED STATES AROSE, AND
WHAT FOLLOWED THEIR ESTABLISHMENT 165

PARLEY TELLS ABOUT NEW SOUTH WALES 176

PARLEY DESCRIBES THE INHABITANTS OF AUSTRALIA--THE
BRITISH SETTLEMENTS--THE GOLD REGIONS--RECENT
EXPLORATIONS 183

CONCLUSION 205





CHAPTER I.

PARLEY TELLS HOW AMERICA WAS FIRST DISCOVERED, AND ABOUT COLUMBUS THE
DISCOVERER.


Now that I have given you an account of European cities in my "Tales
about Europe," I shall now furnish you with some description of America,
with its flourishing cities, and its multitude of ships, its fertile
fields, its mighty rivers, its vast forests, and its millions of happy
and industrious inhabitants, of which I am quite certain you must be
very curious to know something, when you are told that though the world
has been created nearly six thousand years, and many powerful nations
have flourished and decayed, and are now scarcely remembered, yet it is
only three hundred and seventy years ago since it was known that such a
country as America existed.

It was in the year 1492, which you know is only 370 years since, on the
third of August, a little before sunrise, that Christopher Columbus,
undertaking the boldest enterprise that human genius ever conceived, or
human talent and fortitude ever accomplished, set sail from Spain, for
the discovery of the Western World.

I will now give you a short account of Columbus, who was one of the
greatest men the world ever produced. He was born in the city of Genoa,
in Italy; his family were almost all sailors, and he was brought up for
a sailor also, and after being taught geography and various other things
necessary for a sea captain to know, he was sent on board ship at the
age of fourteen. Columbus was tall, muscular, and of a commanding
aspect; his hair, light in youth, turned prematurely grey, and ere he
reached the age of thirty was white as snow.

His first voyages were short ones, but after several years, desiring to
see and learn more of distant countries, and thinking there were still
new ones to be discovered, he went into the service of the King of
Portugal and made many voyages to the western coast of Africa, and to
the Canaries, and the Madeiras, and the Azores, islands lying off that
coast, which were then the most westerly lands known to Europeans.

In his visits to these parts, one person informed him that his ship,
sailing out farther to the west than usual, had picked up out of the sea
a piece of wood curiously carved, and that very thick canes, like those
which travellers had found in India, had been seen floating on the
waves; also that great trees, torn up by the roots, had often been cast
on shore, and once two dead bodies of men, with strange features,
neither like Europeans nor Africans, were driven on the coast of the
Azores.

All these stories set Columbus thinking and considering that these
strange things had come drifting over the sea from the west, he looked
upon them as tokens sent from some unknown countries lying far distant
in that quarter: he was therefore eager to sail away and explore, but as