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16 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
.turned voyager brought back to Spain were well calculated to fire an
ardent youth, of imaginative temperament, nurtured upon traditions
of romance and reared amid the tropical perfumes of the warm
Mediterranean.
Consequently when Columbus for the second time'turned the prow
of his vessel toward the new world we are not surprised to find Ponce
de Leon accompanying him on this expedition. His object was to
achieve wealth, fame, distinction, in a land of great opportunities; and
then, flushed with success, to return to Spain. It was not until disap
pointment overtook him and grim realities, one by one, came to dispel
his cherished illusions that he awoke to find himself an old man, with
his life's ambition unattained, with his feverish thirst unsatisfied, with
his elusive goal unreached. Then he bethought himself of the Fountain
of Youth; but—alas, the pathetic irony of it all—only to be lured to
his fate in a Land of Flowers.
But let us not leap too hastily over intermediate events. On arriving
in the "West Indies he at once became a leader; and as a reward for gal
lant soldiership was given the eastern province of Hispaniola for his
command. Here, from the hill-tops, he could see the green fringes of
Porto Rico and fascinated by the prospect he became eager to rule it;
so, following a visit to the island, which only stimulated his cupidity,
he sought and obtained in 1509 the governorship of Porto Rico; but,
according to Bancroft, he used his power to oppress the natives and to
augment his personal fortunes. When finally removed, after a clash
• with kinsmen of Columbus, he possessed a regal estate; converting
which into a squadron of three vessels he continued his explorations.
But he bore a stained escutcheon; and, what troubled him most, he was
no longer young.
Having learned from natives of the West Indies of a great island
lying to the north called Bimini, he made the 1 discovery of this island
the object of his new enterprise; and, accordingly, on March 3, 1513,
he set sail from Porto Rico. Ponce de Leon's commission from the
king of Spain gave him the right to settle this island and to annex it
to the crown of Spain. Nor was his eagerness to behold this green
country diminished by the report that somewhere in its verdant
stretches bubbled a fountain whose waters possessed a marvelous power:
the power of rejunevating the old and of giving renewed strength to
the feeble. Ponce de Leon was now well beyond the meridian of his
days and sensuous living had made him a wreck of the once puissant
knight who had followed the path of the setting sun toward the west.
But he was still filled with feverish dreams of conquest; and what might
he not accomplish if he could only find this elusive' spring and experi
ence the transforming spell of its wonderful waters.
On March 27, 1513, Easter Sunday, called by the Spaniards Pascua
Florida, land was sighted. Supposing it to be the storied island of
Bimini, he'claimed the discoverer's privilege of changing its name and
called it Florida, for the two-fold reason that it was first seen on Easter
Sunday and because its blossoms, unwontedly brilliant at this season of
the year, gave the name an added appropriateness. Delayed by violent
storms in going ashore, he finally effected a landing some few miles
to the north of the present City of St. Augustine; and claimed the