With the opening of the vast treasure house flanked by the Spanish Main came the Spaniard's supreme opportunity to master the world. Soon in undisputed possession of the greater part of the Western Hemisphere; with immeasurable wealth flowing into his coffers; sustained by dauntless courage and an intrepid spirit of adventure; with papal support, and the learning and genius of the centuries at his command, he faced the opportunity to extend his sway over the entire world and unite all peoples into a universal empire, both temporal and spiritual. That he failed to rise to this possibility was not due to any lack of appreciation of his tremendous opportunity, nor to a dearth of leaders of real military genius, but to a misapprehension of the great truth that the conquest of the world is not to be wrought by feats of arms, but by the exercise of those moral attributes and spiritual qualities of heart and soul which he did not possess--or possessing, had prostituted to the carnal influences of lust of material riches and temporal power. In the immediate wake of the Spanish _Conqueros_ surged the drift and flotsam of the Old World. Cities soon sprang up along the Spanish Main which reflected a curious blend of the old-time life of Seville and Madrid with the picturesque and turbulent elements of the adventurer and buccaneer. The spirit of the West has always been synonymous with a larger sense of freedom, a shaking off of prejudice and tradition and the trammels of convention. The sixteenth century towns of the New World were no exception, and their streets and _plazas_ early exhibited a multicolored panorama, wherein freely mingled knight and predaceous priest, swashbuckler and staid _hidalgo_, timid Indian and veiled _doncella_--a potpourri of merchant, prelate, negro, thief, the broken in fortune and the blackened in character--all poured into the melting pot of the new West, and there steaming and straining, scheming and plotting, attuned to any pitch of venturesome project, so be it that gold and fame were the promised emoluments thereof.