Delaware, after Lord de la
Warre, early governor of Virginia; Pennsylvania, after William Penn,
the good; New Hampshire, after Hampshire, in England, as New England
was, in love, called after the motherland; Georgia, named for George
II, by philanthropic General Oglethorpe, who brought hither his colony
of debtors,--such the contributions of England to our commonwealth of
names. America has supplied one State a name, Washington; and who more
or so worthy to write his name upon a State as George Washington, first
Commander-in-chief and President? Spain has christened these
Commonwealths: Florida, the land of flowers; California; Colorado,
colored; Nevada. We must thank France for these: Maine, for a province
in France; Vermont, green mountains; the Carolinas; Louisiana, a name
attached by the valorous La Salle, in fealty to his prince, calling
this province, at the mouth of the river he had followed to its
entrance into the ocean, after Louis XIV, the then darling of the
French people. Mexico is remembered in two instances: New Mexico and
Texas. Italy has a memorial, bestowed in gratitude by America. The
District of Columbia, with its capital, Washington, reminds men forever
that Columbus discovered and Washington saved America. Besides this,
to Italy's credit, or discredit--I know not which--must be charged the
giving title to two continents. Amerigo Vespucci has lent his name to
one hemisphere of the world. Other States bear Indian captions. Those
wandering hunters have lost their hunting-grounds; but we can not
forget whose hunting-grounds they were so long as the Indian name
clings to the Territory where he is not, but his name shall remain as
his monument. Indiana is generic, the land of the Indian. With this
exception, the States are called after tribes or by some Indian name:
Alabama, Tennessee, Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Nebraska, Kansas,
the Dakotas (who will forget when Hiawatha passed to the land of the
Dakotahs for his wooing?), Wyoming, Oregon, Idaho, and the like. With
such names, we are once more sitting in the woodland, by the wigwam, as
we did a century ago. The memory haunts us. Thus much for the racial
element in cognomens of States.

Now again to set out on the journey on the trail of vanished peoples!

The Spanish invasion of America, now, as we recall its story, big with
pathos and remorse, the pathos predominating, now that the last rag of
a province has been torn from their f