United States or Nepal ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
When, in the reign of Charles V, social distinctions and their consequent rivalries were introduced from the mother-country to the colonies, there arose in Cumana and in other commercial towns of Terra Firma, exaggerated pretensions to nobility on the part of some of the most illustrious families of Caracas, distinguished by the designation of los Mantuanos.
We must not be surprised that fertile islands, so near Terra Firma, are not now inhabited. It was only at the early period of the discovery, and whilst the Caribbees, Chaymas, and Cumanagotos were still masters of the coast, that the Spaniards formed settlements at Cubagua and Margareta.
So, grasping the branch, I gradually drew myself up by it nearly out of the water. I got one knee on the bank; the bear gave a growl; then I got the other knee on terra firma; the bear growled again. I was not to be intimidated. I had never let go my pole. I sprang to my feet and stood looking up at the monster.
In what year this important change in his destiny took place we are not informed. The first we hear of him in the New World is at the island of Hispaniola, in 1510, where he took part in the expedition to Uraba in Terra Firma, under Alonzo de Ojeda, a cavalier whose character and achievements find no parallel but in the pages of Cervantes.
His feet immediately touched the bottom; he stood erect, little above his middle, and quite out of the main current, within half-a-dozen steps of the bank, and he found himself he scarcely knew how on terra firma, impounded in a little flower-garden, with lilacs and laburnums, and sweet-briars, and, through a window close at hand, whom should he see but Dangerfield, who was drying his hands in a towel; and, as Cluffe stood for a moment, letting the water pour down through his sleeves, he further saw him make some queer little arrangements, and eventually pour out and swallow a glass of brandy, and was tempted to invoke his aid on the spot; but some small incivilities which he had bestowed upon Dangerfield, when he thought he cherished designs upon Aunt Rebecca, forbade; and at that moment he spied the little wicket that opened upon the road, and Dangerfield stept close up to the window, and cried sternly, 'Who's there? with his grim spectacles close to the window.
The principal object of interest in the city is the tower of the Cathedral of St. Martin, which is three hundred and twenty-one feet high, and commands a view of nearly the whole of Holland and a portion of Belgium. The sexton has his residence more than a hundred and fifty feet above terra firma, where his family are domiciled, and where his children were born.
This letter is of special importance to the matters under investigatiod, as it is the only one known that relates to the disputed voyage, which would establish him as the discoverer of Terra Firma. It is presumed to have been written in Latin, and was addressed to Rene, duke of Lorraine, who assumed the title of king of Sicily and Jerusalem.
The freedom of the borough; the right of the citizens to have a gild merchant; exemption from tolls, specified or general, within a certain district or throughout all England or also throughout the continental Angevin dominions; exemption from the courts of shire and hundred, or from the jurisdiction of all courts outside the borough, except in pleas of the crown, or even without this exception; the right to farm the revenues of the borough, paying a fixed "firma," or rent, to the king, and with this often the right of the citizens to elect their own reeve or even sheriff to exempt them from the interference of the king's sheriff of the county.
Trapp would never allow him to climb a ladder; had even chained him to terra firma by a vow since, as she explained to me once, "he's an unconverted man. There's no harm in 'en; but I couldn't bear to have him cut off in his sins. Besides, with such a figure, he'd scatter."
They were the longest and the dreariest that he ever spent, but when the welcome light of morning came his foe had departed. The wanderer waited a half hour or more, and carefully reconnoitered the grounds before descending; but, assured that the coast was clear, he came down to terra firma again and took up his line of march.
Word Of The Day