Next they came to a great opening in the shore, to which, after Alaminos had examined it in a boat, they gave the name of Bahía de la Ascension, from the day of discovery. Unable to find a pass in this direction round the supposed island of Yucatan, they turned back, passed Cozumel, and, rounding the peninsula, arrived at Campeche the 25th, rescuing on their way a woman from Jamaica.
Everywhere they beheld the same evidences of high culture seen by Córdoba, the tower-temples and crosses of the Mayas rising from gracefully outlined promontories, and glistening white from behind legended hills, leading them every moment to anticipate the discovery of some magnificent city, such as in our day has been revealed to an admiring posterity; for while the East buries her ancient cities in dust, the West none the less effectually hides hers in foliage. And of the monuments to the greatness of the past, and of the profitless millions here engendered, who shall speak? And why do men call nature considerate or kind? Does she not create only to destroy, and bestow blessings and cursings with the same merciless indifference? Surpassingly lovely, she is at once siren, nurse, and sanguinary beldam. This barren border of the peninsula rested under a canopy of clear or curtained sky, and glared in mingled gloom and brightness beside the fickle gulf; and from the irregular plains of the interior came the heated, perfumed air, telling here of tree-less table-lands, of languid vegetation, and there of forests and evergreen groves. "It is like Spain," cried one. And so they called the country Nueva España,[1] which name, at first applied only to the
- ↑ It was the crosses, which the Spaniards here regarded of miraculous origin, more than any physical feature which after all gave the name to these shores. Cortés established it for all the region under Aztec sway, and under the viceroys it was applied to all the Spanish possessions north of Guatemala, including the undefined territories of California and New Mexico. Humboldt, Essai Pol., i. 6-7, and others, have even shown an inclination to embrace thereunder Central America, but for this there is not sufficient authority. See Médina
