Book excerpt: Excerpt from History of South America and Mexico, Vol. 1 of 2: Comprising Their Discovery, Geography, Politics, Commerce and Revolutions; To Which Is Annexed, a Geographical and Historical View of Texas Having submitted his plan of a voyage of discovery both to his native and adopted countries, without success, he next applied to Spain. Ferdinand and Isabella then governed the united king doms of Castile and Arragon. After having spent more than eight years in fruitless endeavours, during which he had to con tend not only with ignorance and prejudice, but with the pride of false knowledge; and after experiencing the morti cation Of a second rejection of his proposals, just as he was on the eve of leaving the country, the in uence Of two of his friends with the Queen procured for him that encouragement which his own know ledge of the subject, and his long and unwearied exertions, had not been able to effect. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."