As a result of this discovery, a controversy arose between Spain and Portugal, for, in 1454, the Pope had given the Portuguese--by what right he himself doubtless best knew--exclusive control of exploration and conquest on the road to the Indies, although his Bull had in view only the eastern route. Now, however, "spheres of influence" might easily clash. The two Powers repaired again to the Pope, successor of the former, and he, drawing a line across the map of the world from north to south, in a position west of the Azores a hundred leagues, awarded Spain everything that might lie beyond it. The Pope was a Spaniard. The Portuguese did not think the award fair. (It might have been mentioned that the Portuguese King, his "especial friend," had treacherously endeavoured to forestall Columbus by dispatching a caravel on his proposed route secretly, instead of helping him, a futile errand, however.) They protested, and by common consent the line was shifted to 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, corresponding to-day to the 50th degree of longitude. Such a line cuts South America across the mouth of the Amazon, and the Spaniards claimed the right to exclude all other people and all trade but their own from beyond this line. The subsequent conquest and discovery of America embodies some of the most romantic and stirring episodes in history. In his last voyage Columbus explored the West Indies and reached South America, landing at the mouth of the Orinoco, and he sailed along the coast of the Caribbean and Central America to Nombre de Dios--"Name of God"--near Colon. Henry VII of England--who had declined to help Columbus--now kindly permitted John Cabot to sail, in 1499, who discovered Newfoundland and did other valuable exploits. Hispaniola was the first Spanish Settlement, on the Island of Hayti, and this spread to the mainland. In 1513 Vasco Nuñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Darien and Panama and beheld the "South Sea," as described in our chapter upon Central America. The insistent hope of a "strait" or passage through these lands, giving a way to the Spice Islands of the Indies, was now given up, and when Magellan, in 1520, passed through the strait which bears his name, and sailed across the Pacific, it was understood that a vast continent and a vast ocean divided the world from Asia here, a new world, and that lying mainly within the sphere of influence which the Pope had so generously assigned to Spain. With regard to this obsession of Colombus that westward lay the shortest route to India, and the insistent idea of a strait, have not these been materialized in the Panama Canal, and are not these ancient mariners vindicated to-day?