Page 296 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

274 Strategic Features of the Gulf of

and their mainlands, became for many gener
ations, and nearly to our own time, a veritable
El Dorado, — a land where the least of labor,
on the part of its new possessors, rendered the
largest and richest returns. The bounty of
nature, and the ease with which climatic con-
ditions, aided by the unwarlike character of
most of the natives, adapted themselves to the
institution of slavery, insured the cheap and
abundant production of articles which, when
once enjoyed, men found indispensable, as they
already had the silks and spices of the East
In Mexico and in Peru were realized also, in
degree, the actual gold-mine sought by the
avarice of the earlier Spanish explorers ; while
a short though difficult tropical journey
brought the treasures of the west coast across
the Isthmus to the shores of the broad ocean,
nature's great highway, which washed at once
the shores of Old and of New Spain. From the
Caribbean, Great Britain, although her rivals
had anticipated her in the possession of the
largest and richest districts, derived nearly
twenty-five per cent of her commerce, during
the strenuous period when the Mediterranean
contributed but two per cent.