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Carl L. Becker. Beginnings of the American People
Beginnings of the American People
Table of Contents
PREFACE
MAPS
BEGINNINGS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
CHAPTER I
Schöner's Globe, with Magellan's Route and Demarcation Line; Drawn 1523
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
CHAPTER II
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
FOOTNOTES:
CHAPTER III
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
CHAPTER IV
Areas settled by 1660, and between 1660 and 1700
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
CHAPTER V
Growth of English Settlements, 1700–1760
Area of German Settlements and Frontier Line in 1775
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
CHAPTER VI
Area of Settlement in 1774; Boundary proposed by Spain in 1782; Boundary secured by Treaty of 1783; and Settlements West of Alleghanies in 1783
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
FOOTNOTES:
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Отрывок из книги
Carl L. Becker
Published by Good Press, 2019
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And the tale was marvelous, indeed, to the unaccustomed ears of Europe—a tale of innumerable populous cities and great rivers, a tale of industry and thrift and glutted markets, above all a tale of treasure. What was doubtless heard most eagerly and told again with most verve were the accounts of cities with "walles of silver and bulwarkes or towers of golde," palaces "entirely roofed with fine gold," lakes full of pearls, of Indian princes wearing on their arms "gold and gems worth a city's ransom." In that country, says Rubruquis, "whoever wanteth golde, diggeth till he hath found some quantitie." Oderic tells of a "most brave and sumptuous pallace" in Java, "one stayre being of silver, and another of golde, throughout the whole building"; the rooms were "paved all over with silver and gold, and all the wals upon the inner side sealed over with plates of beaten gold; the roof of the palace was of pure gold." As for the Grand Khan, he had, according to Marco Polo, "such a quantity of plate, and of gold and silver in other shapes, as no one ever before saw or heard tell of, or could believe." And so freely did the returned traveler discourse of Kublai Khan's millions of saggi of revenue, that he was ever after known in Italy as Ser Marco Milioni.
In contrast with this country, how small and inferior is Europe! Such is the most general impression conveyed by the accounts of the travelers. Do you think you have some powerful kings here?—they have always the air of asking—some great rivers, populous and thriving cities? But I tell you Europe is nothing. "The city of Quinsay," says Oderic, "hath twelve principall gates; and about the distance of eight miles, on the highway unto each one of the said gates, standeth a city as big by estimation as Venice and Padua." And this trade of the Levant, profitable as you think it, is but a small affair. On a single river in China, the greatest in the world, "there is more wealth and merchandise than on all the rivers and all the seas of Christendom put together." Of that great wealth, very little, indeed, ever comes to the Levant: "for one ship load of pepper that goes to Alexandria or elsewhere, destined for Christendom, there come a hundred, aye and more too, to this haven of Zaiton"; while the diamonds "that are brought to our part of the world are only the refuse of the finer and larger stones; for the flower of the diamonds, as well as of the larger pearls, are all carried to the Grand Khan or other princes of these regions: in truth, they possess all the great treasures of the world."
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