Читать книгу A Brief History of the United States - Joel Dorman Steele - Страница 23

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California, in the sixteenth century, was a general name applied to all the region northwest of Mexico. It is said to have originated in an old Spanish romance very popular in the time of Cortez, in which appeared a character called California, queen of the Amazons. The Mexicans told the Spaniards that most of their gold and precious stones came from a country far to the northwest. Cortez, therefore, immediately turned his attention to that direction, and sent out several expeditions to explore the Californias. All these adventurers returned empty-handed from the very region where, three centuries afterward, the world was startled by the finding of an El Dorado such as would have satisfied the wildest dreams of Cortez and his credulous followers.

CABRILLO (1542) made the first voyage along the Pacific coast, going as far north as the present limits of Oregon.

NEW MEXICO was explored and named by Espejo (es-pay'-ho) who (1582) founded Santa Fe, which is the second oldest town in the United States. This was seventeen years after the settlement of St. Augustine.