Description
PONCE DE LEON AND THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. A golden Easter day was that of the far-away year 1513, when a small fleet of Spanish ships, sailing westward from the green Bahamas, first came in sight of a flower-lined shore, rising above the blue Atlantic waves, and seeming to smile a welcome as the mariners gazed with eyes of joy and hope on the inviting arcades of its verdant forest depths. Never had the eyes of white men beheld this land of beauty before. English ships had sailed along the coast to the north, finding much of it bleak and uninviting. The caravels of Columbus had threaded the glowing line of tropic isles, and later ships had borne settlers to these lands of promise. But the rich southlands of the continent had never before been seen, and well was this unknown realm of beauty named Florida by the Spanish chief, whether by this name he meant to call it the “land of flowers” or referred to the Spanish name for Easter, Pascua Florida. However that be, he was the first of the discoverers to set foot on the soil of the great coming republic of the United States, and it is of interest that this was done within the domain of the sunny South. The weight of half a century of years lay upon the shoulders of Juan Ponce de Leon, the discoverer,8 but warm hope burned in his heart, that of winning renewed boyhood and youthful strength, for it was a magic vision that drew him to these new shores, in whose depths he felt sure the realm of enchantment lay. Somewhere amid those green copses or along those liquid streams, he had been told, a living fountain sprang up clear and sparkling from the earth, its waters of such a marvellous quality that whoever should bathe in them would feel new life coursing through his veins and the vigor of youth bounding along his limbs. It was the Fountain of Youth he sought, that fabled fountain of which men had dreamed for centuries, and which was thought to lie somewhere in eastern Asia.
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