etters of Menendez seems to indicate that the above is
exaggerated: "Your Majesty may he assured by me, that, had I a million,
more or less, I would employ and spend the whole in this undertaking, it
being so greatly to the glory of the God our Lord, and the increase of
our Holy Catholic Faith, and the service and authority of your Majesty
and thus I have offered to our Lord whatever He shall give me in this
world, [Footnote and whatever] I shall possess, gain, or acquire shall
be devoted to the planting of the Gospel in this land, and the
enlightenment of the natives thereof, and this I do promise to your
Majesty." This letter is dated 11 Septemher, 1565.]

[Footnote 23: I have examined the country on the line of march of
Menendez. In many places it retains its original features.]

[Footnote 24: Amid all the confusion of his geographical statements, it
seems clear that Menendez believed that Cheeapeake Bay communicated with
the St. Lawrence, and thence with Newfoundland on the one hand, and the
South Sea on the other. The notion that the St. Lawrence would give
access to China survived till the time of La Salle, or more than a
century. In the map of Gastaldi, made, according to Kohl, about 1550, a
belt of water connecting the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic is laid down.
So also in the map of Ruscelli, 1561, and that of Mactines, 1578, as
well as in that of Michael Lok, 1582. In Munster's map, 1545, the St.
Lawrence is rudely indicated, with the words, "Per hoc fretfl iter ad
Molucas."]

[Footnote 25: The "black drink" was, till a recent period, in use among
the Creeks. It is a strong decoctiun of the plant popularly called
eassina, or nupon tea. Major Swan, deputy agent for the Creeks in 1791,
thus describes their belief in its properties: "that it purifies them
from all sin, and leaves them in a state of perfect innocence; that it
inspires them with an invincible prowess in war; and that it is the only
solid cement of friendship, benevolence, and hospitality." Swan's
account of their mode of drinking and ejecting it corresponds perfectly
with Le Moyne's picture in De Bry. See the United States government
publication, History, Condition, and Prospects of Indian Tribes, V.
266.]

[Footnote 27: The earliest maps and narratives indicate a city, also
called Norembega, on the banks of the Penobseot. The pilot, Jean
Alphonse, of Saintonge, says that this fabulous city is fifteen or
twenty leagues from the sea, and that it