Comic History of the United States | Page 5

The historian desires at this time to speak briefly of the methods of
Cortez from a commercial stand-point.

Will the reader be good enough to cast his eye on the Cortez securities
as shown in the picture drawn from memory by an artist yet a perfect
gentleman?
[Illustration: BANK OF CORTEZ.]
Notice the bonds Nos. 18 and 27. Do you notice the listening attitude of
No. 18? He is listening to the accumulating interest. Note the aged and
haggard look of No. 27. He has just begun to notice that he is maturing.
Cast your eye on the prone form of No. 31. He has just fallen due, and
in doing so has hurt his crazy-bone (see Appendix).
Be good enough to study the gold-bearing bond behind the screen. See
the look of anguish. Some one has cut off a coupon probably. Cortez
was that kind of a man. He would clip the ear of an Inca and make him
scream with pain, so that his friends would come in and redeem him.
Once the bank examiner came to examine the Cortez bank. He
imparted a pleasing flavor on the following day to the soup.
Spain owned at the close of the sixteenth century the West Indies,
Yucatan, Mexico, and Florida, besides unlimited water facilities and
the Peruvian preserves.
North Carolina was discovered by the French navigator Verrazani,
thirty years later than Cabot did, but as Cabot did not record his claim
at the court-house in Wilmington the Frenchman jumped the claim in
1524, and the property remained about the same till again discovered
by George W. Vanderbilt in the latter part of the present century.
Montreal was discovered in 1535 by Cartier, also a Frenchman.
Ribaut discovered South Carolina, and left thirty men to hold it. They
were at that time the only white men from-Mexico to the North Pole,
and a keen business man could have bought the whole thing, Indians
and all, for a good team and a jug of nepenthe. But why repine?
The Jesuit missionaries about the middle of the seventeenth century

pushed their way to the North Mississippi and sought to convert the
Indians. The Jesuits deserve great credit for their patience, endurance,
and industry, but they were shocked to find the Indian averse to work.
They also advanced slowly in church work, and would often avoid
early mass that they might catch a mess of trout or violate the game law
by killing a Dakotah in May.
[Illustration: CONVERTING INDIANS.]
Father Marquette discovered the Upper Mississippi not far from a large
piece of suburban property owned by the author, north of Minneapolis.
The ground has not been disturbed since discovered by Father
Marquette.
The English also discovered America from time to time, the Cabots
finding Labrador while endeavoring to go to Asia via the North, and
Frobisher discovered Baffin Bay in 1576 while on a like mission. The
Spanish discovered the water mostly, and England the ice belonging to
North America.
Sir Francis Drake also discovered the Pacific Ocean, and afterward
sailed an English ship on its waters, discovering Oregon.
Sir Walter Raleigh, with the endorsement of his half-brother, Sir
Humphrey Gilbert, regarding the idea of colonization of America, and
being a great friend of Queen Elizabeth, got out a patent on Virginia.
He planted a colony and a patch of tobacco on Roanoke Island, but the
colonists did not care for agriculture, preferring to hunt for gold and
pearls. In this way they soon ran out of food, and were constantly
harassed by Indians.
[Illustration: COULD NOT REACH THEM.]
It was an odd sight to witness a colonist coming home after a long hard
day hunting for pearls as he asked his wife if she would be good
enough to pull an arrow out of some place which he could not reach
himself.

Raleigh spent two hundred thousand dollars in his efforts to colonize
Virginia, and then, disgusted, divided up his patent and sold county
rights to it at a pound apiece. This was in 1589. Raleigh learned the use
of smoking tobacco at this time.
[Illustration: RALEIGH'S ASTONISHMENT.]
He was astonished when he tried it first, and threatened to change his
boarding-place or take his meals out, but soon enjoyed it, and before he
had been home a week Queen Elizabeth thought it to be an excellent
thing for her house plants. It is now extensively used in the best
narcotic circles.
[Illustration: RALEIGH'S ENJOYMENT.]
Several other efforts were made by the English to establish colonies in
this country, but the Indians thought that these English people bathed
too much, and invited perspiration between baths.
One can see readily that the Englishman with his portable bath-tub has
been a flag of defiance from the earliest discoveries till this day.
This chapter brings us to