"Here to the southwest is Mexico, and that is a country for great dreams.

There the plantain and the orange grow and there are silver and gold--and the warm gulf is on this side, and the South Sea far, far away, and down here is South America.

The Aztecs lived in Mexico, and Cortez conquered them.

He burned his ships so that he and his Spaniards might not retreat.

Here is the land west of the Mississippi, unknown and far away.