the globe since he left the shores of the New World, but he had passed among the many scattered groups of islands in that part of the ocean without ever sighting land. He was not destined to enjoy his success, for he died in a skirmish on Matan, one of the Philippine Islands, and the news of the first circumnavigation of the globe was brought home by his subordinate, Sebastian del Cano. [5] Another story attributes this name to Vasco Nuñez’ native informant. Now that the sea-way to the western coasts of America was pointed out, the outline of the continent became fairly known, and the interior was being gradually covered with landmarks, by the end of the sixteenth century. Under the energetic direction of Cortez, the Spaniards had conquered Mexico. By 1533 his emissaries had arrived at the Gulf of California; in 1541 New Mexico was explored, and by 1571 it was possible to construct the admirable map of Mexico which figures in Ortelius’s Atlas (1579). In South America Francisco Pizarro and his three brothers, with Diego Almagro and Hernando de Luque, had worked with such daring good-fortune that the whole of the Empire of the Incas was conquered for Spain, and in 1535 Chile was added to it. After the first conquest, great tracts of country were explored and taken possession of--first the valleys of the Andes and the country which was named New Granada, then the whole coast between the Straits of Magellan and Peru; and in 1541 Francisco de Orellana, who had separated himself from a disastrous expedition led by Gonzalo Pizarro over the Andes from Quito, made a stupendous journey right down the River Amazon. In 1539 Hernandez de Soto, longing for another Peru to conquer, and full of the fables of treasure and precious metals which were rife everywhere in those days of great discoveries, started on a long and courageous battle to win for himself and his followers the land lying between the Gulf of Mexico and the River Ohio. He penetrated Arkansas; but he was eventually killed, and his followers driven from the country.