All this may be looking overfar into the future. All that can be said now is that our new possessions have placed upon us new duties and new responsibilities, and may effectually break that policy of political isolation which we have so long maintained, and throw us into the caldron of world politics to take our part in shaping the future of the uncivilized races. For this we are surely strong enough, enterprising enough, and moral enough; and whatever our record, it is not likely to be one of defeat, of injustice and oppression, or of forgetfulness of the duty of nations and the rights of man. CHARLES MORRIS. JULY, 1899. CHAPTER I. DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION. The Visits of the Northmen to the New World--The Indians and Mound Builders--Christopher Columbus--His Discovery of America--Amerigo Vespucci--John Cabot--_Spanish Explorers_--Balboa--His Discovery of the Pacific--Magellan--Ponce de Leon--De Narvaez--De Soto--Menendez--_French Explorers_--Verrazzani--Cartier--Ribault--Laudonniere--Champlain--La Salle--_English Explorers_--Sir Hugh Willoughby--Martin Frobisher--Sir Humphrey Gilbert--Sir Walter Raleigh--The Lost Colony--_Dutch Explorer_--Henry Hudson. THE NORTHMEN. It has been established beyond question that the first white visitors to the New World were Northmen, as the inhabitants of Norway and Sweden were called. They were bold and hardy sailors, who ventured further out upon the unknown sea than any other people. It was about the year 1000 that Biorn, who was driven far from his course by a tempest, sighted the northern part of the continent. Other adventurers followed him and planted a few settlements, which, however, lasted but a few years. Snorri, son of one of these settlers, was the first child born of European parents on this side of the Atlantic. Soon all traces of these early discoverers vanished, and the New World lay slumbering in loneliness for nearly five hundred years. [Illustration: AMERIGO VESPUCCI.] THE MOUND BUILDERS.