While the ambition of Columbus was in this manner thwarted, and his rightful authority superseded, in the very countries which he had discovered, his spirit did not languish in inactivity, nor did he relinquish his former purpose of penetrating by the west to those rich countries of India described by Marco Polo and other travellers. He begged to be placed again at the head of an expedition; and events had recently occurred which added weight to his entreaties. About a year before his return from Hispaniola, Vasco de Gama had arrived at Lisbon, after accomplishing the voyage to India by the Cape of Good Hope, and had brought back such an account of those rich and populous countries as inflamed the desire of every European state to open an intercourse with them. The reputation of Columbus as a learned and sagacious cosmographer was now established beyond dispute, and he offered to conduct a fleet to the Indies by a snorter route than that followed by De Gama. He had traced the coast of Caraccas a long way to the west; he had also surveyed the southern shores of Cuba, which he supposed to be the continent, in the same direction; he therefore concluded that the ocean extended between those limits, and that the strait leading into those Indian seas which had been visited by the Portuguese lay somewhere in the direction of Darien.

The geography of the ancients may be considered as having attained its greatest accuracy and comprehensiveness in the age of Ptolemy. The disorders which soon after followed in the Roman empire, the frequent migrations of the northern nations, and the invasions of the Goths and Huns, completely changed the geography of Europe, and rendered it difficult to procure any positive details amidst the disorders of so many revolutions.

Yet geography was still cultivated in the Roman world, and several treatises and itineraries remain, interesting to the critic, but of little importance in a general view. Of the itineraries the Romans had two kinds, the Picta and Annotata, or the drawn and written: the latter contained the names of the stations and chief places, with their distances from one another, without entering into any detail. In the Itineraria Picta, which were much more complete, all the great roads were drawn, the name and extent of the different provinces added, with the number of the inhabitants, the mountains, rivers, and neighbouring seas. But in all those monuments of Roman industry there is no trace of mathematical geography; no scientific measurement; the distances of places were ascertained merely by itinerary measures, or occasionally by observations of latitude. Pliny complains bitterly of the inaccuracy of those measures. Of the former kind of itinerary the most remarkable that remain to us are that called the Itinerary of Antonine, the age of which it is difficult to ascertain; and the Itinerary of Jerusalem, a fragment which points out in great detail the whole route from Bourdeaux to that city.

While the Spanish settlements in the Pacific Ocean were threatened by great armaments fitted out by rival nations, they were at the same time attacked by a singular and more formidable hostility, which originated in the defects of a severe and contracted policy. The association and the enterprises of the buccaneers, if they did not in the first instance benefit geography, tended at least to familiarise European seamen with the navigation of the Pacific Ocean, and gave an air of facility to undertakings which had before been regarded as difficult in the extreme.

The despotic administration of the Spanish colonies in the West Indies incurred the very evils which it sought to avoid. Even the Spaniards themselves felt oppressed by the numerous restrictions which were placed on trade; and gave stealthy encouragement to foreign interlopers, who supplied them at an easier rate with articles which could not be legally procured without paying enormous exactions. English traders soon made their appearance in these seas; and, as the Spanish authorities on the one hand treated them as enemies, or even as pirates, while on the other they were invited by the profits of a contraband trade, they soon learned to adopt the precaution of going well armed.

The cruelties of the Spaniards to the native inhabitants of Cuba terminated in the depopulation of that fine island.

The ardour of discovery which had prompted the court of Spain to despatch the well-prepared armaments of Magellan and Loyasa, was much abated by the indifferent success of these expeditions. The embarrassments of European politics, and the exhaustion of his treasury, prevented the emperor from taking energetic measures to extend or develope his distant possessions; and notwithstanding the difficulty with which the Spanish settlements in South America communicated overland, the attempts made by the government to open the navigation and establish an intercourse by the Straits of Magellan were few and ineffectual.

In 1534, Alcazava with two ships attempted to reach Peru by this course. On arriving at the western entrance of the strait, he saw a cross, supposed to have been erected there by Magellan; and the remains of a wreck, probably of a ship of Loyasa's fleet. The severity of the weather, and the want of water, caused much discontent among the crews; and Alcazava, with a facility which eventually proved fatal to him, yielded to the importunities of his officers, and returned to the port De Leones y Lobos (of (sea) Lions and Wolves, i.e. seals), on the coast of Patagonia. To employ the men, he planned an expedition up the country; but as the weak state of his health did not permit him to conduct it himself, he placed it under the command of Roderigo de la Isla.

Great revolutions in the history of mankind are apt to call forth the energies of individuals in an extraordinary degree, and to furnish a splendid scene of remarkable characters. The discovery of America, the most important event perhaps in the annals of history, fully justifies this observation. The Spaniards in the New World were led to conquest by a train of heroes, who, in the vastness of their designs and daring courage, perfectly corresponded with the grandeur of the theatre in which they moved. Among the most conspicuous of these was Hernando Cortez. This celebrated man was born in 1485, at Medelin in Estremadura, of a noble but not wealthy family. Being intended for the bar, he received a good education; but, as he grew up, the extreme ardour of his temper disqualified him for the studies of scholastic life, and determined him to embrace the profession of arms. The wars in Italy at that time offered an inviting field to the aspirants after military renown, and Cortez was prevented by sickness alone from trying his fortune in that quarter. He was reserved for more singular achievements than could be expected from the well-balanced struggles of European warfare. In 1504 he departed for Hispaniola, where he was well received by the governor Ovando, who was also his relation.