Peter Parleys Tales About America and Australia

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Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Peter Parley's Tales About America and
Australia, by Samuel Griswold Goodrich, Edited by Rev. T. Wilson, Illustrated by S. Williams
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Title: Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia
Author: Samuel Griswold Goodrich
Editor: Rev. T. Wilson
Release Date: October 17, 2005 [eBook #16891]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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TALES ABOUT AMERICA AND AUSTRALIA.
by
PETER PARLEY.
A New Edition,
Brought Down to the Present Time.
Revised by The Rev. T. Wilson.
With Illustrations by S. Williams.

London: Darton and Hodge, Holborn Hill. 1862.

CONTENTS.
PAGE
PARLEY TELLS HOW AMERICA WAS FIRST DISCOVERED, AND ABOUT COLUMBUS 1
PARLEY DESCRIBES THE INHABITANTS 12
COLUMBUS SETS SAIL TO RETURN TO SPAIN; ENCOUNTERS A DREADFUL STORM 21
COLUMBUS PREPARES FOR ANOTHER VOYAGE 35
PARLEY TELLS HOW COLUMBUS DISCOVERED THE CONTINENT OF AMERICA 45
PARLEY TELLS HOW COLUMBUS WAS ROBBED OF THE HONOUR OF GIVING HIS NAME TO AMERICA 59
PARLEY TELLS HOW COLUMBUS WAS SHIPWRECKED, AND OF HIS DEATH 65
PARLEY TELLS OF OVANDO'S CRUEL TREATMENT OF ANACAONA, THE PRINCESS OF HAYTI 73
PARLEY DESCRIBES THE TREES, THE PLANTS, AND FLOWERS OF THE NEW WORLD 79
PARLEY TELLS OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO 96
PARLEY RELATES HOW PIZARRO DISCOVERED AND CONQUERED PERU 121
PARLEY DESCRIBES THE BEAUTIES OF AMERICA 133
PARLEY TELLS OF THE FIRST ENGLISH COLONY IN AMERICA 141
PARLEY TELLS OF THE ORIGINAL NATIVE AMERICANS 150
PARLEY SHOWS HOW THE UNITED STATES AROSE, AND WHAT FOLLOWED THEIR ESTABLISHMENT 165
PARLEY TELLS ABOUT NEW SOUTH WALES 176
PARLEY DESCRIBES THE INHABITANTS OF AUSTRALIA--THE BRITISH SETTLEMENTS--THE GOLD REGIONS--RECENT EXPLORATIONS 183
CONCLUSION 205
CHAPTER I.
PARLEY TELLS HOW AMERICA WAS FIRST DISCOVERED, AND ABOUT COLUMBUS THE DISCOVERER.
Now that I have given you an account of European cities in my "Tales about Europe," I shall now furnish you with some description of America, with its flourishing cities, and its multitude of ships, its fertile fields, its mighty rivers, its vast forests, and its millions of happy and industrious inhabitants, of which I am quite certain you must be very curious to know something, when you are told that though the world has been created nearly six thousand years, and many powerful nations have flourished and decayed, and are now scarcely remembered, yet it is only three hundred and seventy years ago since it was known that such a country as America existed.
It was in the year 1492, which you know is only 370 years since, on the third of August, a little before sunrise, that Christopher Columbus, undertaking the boldest enterprise that human genius ever conceived, or human talent and fortitude ever accomplished, set sail from Spain, for the discovery of the Western World.
I will now give you a short account of Columbus, who was one of the greatest men the world ever produced. He was born in the city of Genoa, in Italy; his family were almost all sailors, and he was brought up for a sailor also, and after being taught geography and various other things necessary for a sea captain to know, he was sent on board ship at the age of fourteen. Columbus was tall, muscular, and of a commanding aspect; his hair, light in youth, turned prematurely grey, and ere he reached the age of thirty was white as snow.
His first voyages were short ones, but after several years, desiring to see and learn more of distant countries, and thinking there were still new ones to be discovered, he went into the service of the King of Portugal and made many voyages to the western coast of Africa, and to the Canaries, and the Madeiras, and the Azores, islands lying off that coast, which were then the most westerly lands known to Europeans.
In his visits to these parts, one person informed him that his ship, sailing out farther to the west than usual, had picked up out of the sea a piece of wood curiously carved, and that very thick canes, like those which travellers had found in India, had been seen floating on the waves; also that great trees, torn up by the roots, had often been cast on shore, and once two dead bodies