were to be obtained only at a fabulous cost, was stimulated to the highest pitch.  Without here going into the particulars of their history, it need only be remembered that they founded, in twenty-five years, a powerful State, the fame of which has spread all over the world, and around whose borders young territories have sprung into existence and flourished vigorously; two of them indeed having attained to the condition of independent States.  After the Californian gold-diggers had changed the configuration of the ground of entire provinces by having, with Titanic might, deposited masses of earth into the sea until they expanded into hilly districts, so as to obtain therefrom, with the aid of ingenious machinery, the smallest particle of gold which was contained therein, they have astonished the world in their capacity of agriculturalists, whose produce is sent even to the most distant markets, and everywhere takes the first rank without dispute.  Such mighty results have been achieved by a people whose total number scarcely, indeed, exceeds 500,000; and therefore, perhaps, they may not find it an easy matter to withstand the competition of the Chinese.

[255] The rails, if laid in one continuous line, would measure about 103,000 feet, the weight of them being 20,000 cwt.  Eight Chinamen were engaged in the work, relieving one another by fours.  These men were chosen to perform this feat on account of their particular activity, out of 10,000.

(The translator of the 1875 London edition notes:  “This statement is incorrect, so far as the fact of the feat being accomplished by Chinese is concerned.  Eight Europeans were engaged in this extraordinary piece of work.  During the rejoicings which took place in Sacramento upon the opening of the line, these men were paraded in a van, with the account of their splendid achievement painted in large letters on the outside.  Certainly not one of them was a Chinaman.”—­C.

[256] Magellan fell on April 27, struck by a poisoned arrow, on the small island of Mactan, lying opposite the harbor of Cebu.  His lieutenant, Sebastian de Elcano, doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and on September 6, 1522, brought back one of the five ships with which Magellan set sail from St. Lucar in 1519, and eighteen men, with Pigafetta, to the same harbor, and thus accomplished the first voyage round the world in three years and fourteen days.

[257] 1565 is the date for what is now the Philippines.—­C.

[258] Villalobos gave this name to one of the Southern islands and Legaspi extended it to the entire archipelago.—­C.

[259] “According to recent authors they were also named after Villalobos in 1543.—­Morga, p. 5.