Spain (Illustrated): History for Young Readers

As I pause in my work to pass in review the events of three thousand years, which I have tried to narrate in this little book, I probably anticipate my readers in wondering at the audacity, not to say presumption, which moved me to this undertaking. It came about quite naturally, to be sure, as the result of an interest awakened many years ago in a nation which had sent to America such discoverers as Columbus and Vespucci, such soldiers as Cortes and Pizarro, De Soto, and Ponce de Leon. At first I became curious to visit the scenes of their adventures, then to journey through the country whence they had come; and the result has been that I have devoted a portion of my life to a study of both people and country.