284
VOYAGES
A N D DISCOVERIES
OF
which kept the island in perpetual verdure, but none that could restore to an old man the vernal greenness of his youth. Thus ended the romantic expedition of Juan Ponce de Leon. Like many other pursuits of a chimera, it terminated in the ac足 quisition of a substantial good.
Though he had failed in finding
the fairy fountain of youth, he had discovered in place of it the important country of Florida.*
C H A P T E R VIII. EXPEDITION
OP
JUAN
PONCE
AGAINST
THE
CAKIBS.
HIS
DEATH.
[1514] JUAN PONCE D E LEON
now repaired to Spain, to make a report
of his voyage to King Ferdinand.
The hardy old cavalier expe足
rienced much raillery from the witlings of the court, on account of his visionary voyage, though many wise men had been as credulous as himself at the outset.
The king, however, received
him with great favor, and conferred on him the title of Adelan* The belief of the existence, in Florida, of a river like that sought by Juan Ponce, was long prevalent among the Indians of Cuba, and the caciques were anxious to discover it.
That a party of the natives of Cuba once went
in search of it, and remained there, appears to be a fact, as their descendants were afterwards to be traced among the people of Florida.
Las Casas says,
that, even in his days, many persisted in seeking this mystery, and some thought that the river was no other than that called the Jordan, at the point of St. Helena ; without considering that the name was given to it by the Span足 iards in the year 1520, when they discovered the land of Chicora.