Tall palm-trees and engine-houses stood out against the sky; the surf gleamed white around the base of isolated rocks.

A little nearer, and we were under the lee, or western side, of the island.

The sea grew smooth as glass; we entered the shade of the island-cloud, and slid along in still unfathomable blue water, close under the shore of what should have been one of the Islands of the Blest.
It was easy, in presence of such scenery, to conceive the exaltation which possessed the souls of the first discoverers of the West Indies.

What wonder if they seemed to themselves to have burst into Fairyland--to be at the gates of The Earthly Paradise?
With such a climate, such a soil, such vegetation, such fruits, what luxury must not have seemed possible to the dwellers along those shores?
What riches too, of gold and jewels, might not be hidden among those forest-shrouded glens and peaks?
And beyond, and beyond again, ever new islands, new continents perhaps, an inexhaustible wealth of yet undiscovered worlds.
No wonder that the men rose above themselves, for good and for evil; that having, as it seemed to them, found infinitely, they hoped infinitely, and dared infinitely.

They were a dumb generation and an unlettered, those old Conquistadores.